Scenes from Seasons
by Veringue
Summary: 'Therese looked and saw, in the light that spilled from the house, a tear, like a shooting star, on Carol's cheek.' An album of scenes - across various locations and months and years - between Carol and Therese, rather like Therese's photo album in words. Newest scene: A trip to the store 'At Macy's (Mid-May)'.
1. In Colorado Springs (Early February)

_Hi there! I'm so, so excited to be writing some things about 'Carol' as I adored both the movie and the book._

 _Although all these scenes can in theory be read in isolation, themes and headcanons are developed throughout. All the scenes have a location and a month and a time of month to tie them together. They're in no particular chronological order, and I'll add to them when inspiration strikes._

 _A note on the timeline: I've placed the storyline of the book in 1950-1 (unlike the movie's 1952-3). Also, I couldn't decide whether to write Therese as a photographer or a set designer, so she's a cocktail mix of the two._

 _Since I'm now on my way to wrapping up the world of this fic, I'm not really taking prompts anymore, but you can always find my Tumblr at 'missjordanbakers'._ _Hope you enjoy, and thank you for reading! Please let me know what you think._

* * *

Table of Contents:

1\. In Colorado Springs (Early February) – A drive into the mountains  
2\. On Madison Avenue (Late March) – The new apartment  
3\. To Virginia (Late November) – Thanksgiving at Carol's sister's  
4\. On Broadway (Early December) – Audrey Hepburn in 'Gigi'  
5\. On Madison Avenue (Early April) – Carol's birthday  
6\. On Madison Avenue (Late December) – Christmas Eve  
7\. In Paris (December into January) – New Year's Eve  
8\. In Paris (December into January) II – New Year's Morn  
9\. On Madison Avenue (Mid-May) – A cat named Holiday  
10\. In Birdland (Late February) – Therese's birthday  
11\. On Madison Avenue – The new apartment, one year on  
12\. In Central Park (Late April) – Rindy's birthday  
13\. To New Jersey (Early June) – Abby's steak house  
14\. To Arizona (Early July) – Independence Day  
15\. At Rockefeller Center (Mid-September) – A visit from Mrs. French  
16\. On Madison Avenue (Late December) II – A Christmas party  
17\. On Madison Avenue (Mid-February) – Valentine's Day  
18\. At Macy's (Mid-May) – A trip to the store

 _Oh, a cherubim  
Thou wast that did preserve me.  
_– _William Shakespeare, The Tempest_

* * *

 _In Colorado Springs (Early February)_

In Colorado Springs, the roads were quiet where the mountains began. Carol had been teaching Therese to drive at the foot of the mountains, and when Therese began to feel tired, Carol would take the wheel and drive them along the quiet roads up and away. They would climb further and further away, away from anyone and anything else. This was when Therese felt happiest, climbing the mountains with Carol. The car seemed to listen to Carol better than it did to Therese, and it bounded along, higher and higher, happier for being in Carol's hands. Who could blame it, Therese thought.

It was on one of these days, high up in the mountains, that they had planned to park the car and hike a little way into Pike National Forest. They had brought lunch with them – ham and bread and fruit and coffee – and would eat it first. Carol had stopped the car by the entrance to a trail, and Therese looked out at the cliffs and the peaks, red and white. Carol had left the engine on, and it buzzed through Therese as if the earth itself was humming. She heard the rustle of paper as Carol took out the map.

When Therese looked over, Carol was not looking at the map but out the window to her left, just as Therese had been looking out a moment before. Carol was looking past the green of the forest, to the red cliffs, and further along to the white peaks, Therese knew, because her head was tilted back, only slightly. Her blond curls rested against the collar of her coat, and Therese could just see the back of her neck. The long muscle along the side of her neck stood out, keeping her head perfectly tilted and perfectly still.

Therese was struck by Carol's stillness. Carol was looking at the mountains, and Therese was looking at her, and, like the mountains, Carol was perfectly still. The mountains were tilted up along the earth and in their reflections in the windows, and Carol's head was tilted with them. Therese wished she could take a photograph of Carol then, but found that she could not move, could not breathe. Only her eyes darted from the relief of the muscle in Carol's neck to the ridge in the mountains, from the red corner of Carol's lips to the red cliff, from Carol's hair, pale blond in this mountain light, to the snow that dressed the peaks of the mountains.

Carol seemed to become one with the peaks beyond her, and Therese seemed to become one with Carol. But in the same instant that Therese thought that thought, Carol began to recede from her, as though the land that had exhaled her was very hastily drawing her back in. And Therese began to breathe all at once and very quickly. She had not noticed that she had begun to lean, lean imperceptibly, towards Carol, as if trying to tilt with Carol and the earth, to catch her even as she was slipping away.

In the instant that Therese leaned, Carol turned her head and kissed Therese on the lips. Therese's breath was gone. She could not tell who had caught whom, and it bothered her, because it had happened so naturally. As naturally as the mountains and trees and creeks were shaped, through shifts and groans in the earth's rumbling engine. As naturally as countries or boulders shift and tumble. There was the faint taste of coffee.

Therese was suddenly frightened and pulled back. Carol's hand was on her own, and she had no idea how it had gotten there.

'Don't worry,' Carol said calmly. 'There's no one here but you and me.' And the mountains, Therese thought.

Therese looked at Carol again, but Carol was now looking at the map and holding a sandwich. 'Shall we walk along here?' she asked without looking up.

Carol's freckled fingers smoothed the map. Her red nail traced the trail that began where they had stopped. She still had not turned off the car's engine. Therese thought of them walking all the way through the green forest, climbing the red cliffs, reaching the white-capped mountains, crossing the white peaks, and disappearing beyond them into a world where they knew no one and nothing except each other.

'Yes,' she said. I'd walk to the ends of the earth with you, she meant.


	2. On Madison Avenue (Late March)

_On Madison Avenue (Late March)_

On Madison Avenue, the taxi stopped. Therese had half-expected that it would not, that she had not told the driver the address at all, that the address did not exist, that Carol's new apartment on Madison Avenue did not exist, that the taxi driver would continue driving her uptown until she was forced to give him all the money she had and walk back for miles. But the taxi stopped, and Therese looked at the building through the foggy window. She paid the driver and stepped out with her two small suitcases. Her few other belongings would be arriving later. Carol had arranged it all.

Therese already had a key. She made her way inside and up to the top floor of the newer, taller apartment building and unlocked the door of the apartment. It swung open easily, and Therese stepped in. The door fell shut behind her, and she put her suitcases down where she stood. She took off her gloves, and her hands were shaking. It was very silent in the apartment. She was surrounded by Carol's things, Carol's coats on the coat stand, Carol's scarves on the shelf, Carol's name on boxes neatly stacked along the wall.

She walked into the apartment, past the kitchen filled with Carol's cups and plates and glasses, some still neatly wrapped in white tissue paper, into the large living room filled with more boxes that had Carol's name on them and furniture that Therese recognized from Carol's house. It was as though she had walked straight into an apartment that was Carol, as though she had been asked to design a set that was Carol and this was what she had designed. It made her dizzy. There was Carol's gramophone, Carol's plants on the windowsill.

Therese took off her coat and slung it across the back of one of Carol's chairs. When she raised her head, she caught a whiff of Carol's perfume in the air. It passed in a moment, like a current or a sea breeze. She felt a twinge of pain in her side, and then in her heart, at having to move into this apartment that was Carol's, at having walked into Carol's neatness and thrown her coat down into it. A restlessness crept through her. She wondered whether she had made the right choice.

Therese picked up her coat again and walked to the wide windows at the other end of the living room. Madison Avenue was dotted with toy cars and toy people that Carol might have bought from her at Frankenberg's. Over the flat roofs of the buildings across the street she could just see the green and grey of Central Park. It made her think of the country around where Carol lived- had lived, she corrected herself. The sky was very bright and blue and full of wind today. The clouds cast shadows on Carol's rug beneath her feet. Therese turned and saw Carol's shadow before she saw Carol.

Carol was standing in the doorway that led out into the hall and to the bedrooms. She was leaning against the doorframe, so that Therese's eyes could follow the long line from her ankle to her shoulder up and up. Carol's arms were crossed. Carol had been watching Therese, Therese realized, as she did not think Carol had ever watched her before. It had always been Therese watching as Carol talked to others or listened to music or drove her car or brushed her hair. It had always been her watching Carol.

Therese moved when Carol moved. They met in the middle of the room. She dropped her coat on the way to Carol's arms. She felt Carol's hands spread across her back and shoulders, Carol's lips and nose graze her neck, Carol's hair tickle her cheek. She felt her own hands reach out to touch Carol's dress, Carol's hair. She squeezed her eyes shut. Carol's perfume was all around her now and beyond that- Carol. Carol held her so tightly she felt she would never breathe again.

When she opened her eyes, she was looking into Carol's. 'Do you like it?' Carol asked about. How could she not like the apartment, Therese thought. When she loved Carol.

'I love it,' Therese said.

A sudden softness came into Carol's eyes. Here where there was no one to spy on them, listen in on them, walk in on them, Carol seemed to have come to life, seemed to have materialized out of the air and the light and the apartment that was so much her. The softness spread, like a sunrise, across her face and suffused it with color. It reached Carol's mouth, and she smiled, and she took Therese's face in her hands and kissed her.

The softness found Therese then. It raced along her skin, left goose bumps wherever it went, reached her head and clouded her mind. She felt Carol let go of her and take her hand. In her clouded mind, she heard Carol speak. 'Welcome home, darling,' Carol said. Therese clutched at Carol's hand as though she were blind. In her clouded mind, Therese heard Carol's words repeated to her, over and over and over again, extending farther and farther into the clouded horizon of her future life with Carol, with only Carol.


	3. To Virginia (Late November)

_A/N: A prompt from longlivevanderjesus on Tumblr: Therese goes with Carol to Carol's sister's for Thanksgiving as her roommate._

* * *

 _To Virginia (Late November)_

To Virginia, that was where they went for Thanksgiving Day. A week earlier, Carol had told Therese, casually, that she would finally have to drag herself out to see her sister Elaine. Of course, Carol knew that Therese knew that Carol hated travelling alone. Carol still had the same car – she would not part with it when the house was sold – and, because she was nervous, said she preferred to drive the whole way. Therese had tried to dissuade her, but it was no use.

Carol drove them along the scenic route through Pennsylvania and Maryland at an outrageous speed. They stopped once to spend the night in Pennsylvania, on the border, just as they had done at the start of the year. Now it was nearly the end of 1951, and they had circled back to the same state. Except Therese's hair was cropped short, her pyjamas were silken, and she slept with Carol in her arms.

'Remember the last time we were here?' Therese asked very quietly as they lay, on the verge of sleep, beneath the covers. 'I asked you about your family here, do you remember?' Therese remembered it like it was only yesterday, Carol's smile, her hands on the wheel, driving and driving. Like it was only yesterday, except Therese had lived a thousand lifetimes since then.

'I'm asleep,' was all Carol said. 'And cold.' She pulled Therese closer.

Blue Ridge, Virginia, was a strange place to go with Carol. Wherever they had travelled the last time they had travelled, they had always travelled into the unknown. Carol had gravitated towards it. Therese felt that Carol carried something of it with her – maddening, just beyond Therese's grasp. That in every unknown American town or field or freeway, Therese had found a little piece of the unknown that Carol carried. That Therese had mapped Carol out across the unknown unknown, the vast expanse of space, that was America. But in Virginia, a very real part of Carol was already waiting.

Elaine's house stood between a forest and a lake as if it could not decide which it preferred. The last of the day showed them distant mountains, fog that clung to the hills, and trees that were turning orange. Therese took a leaf with her. It went from bright green to bright orange within an inch. Elaine's house was bursting with light.

'Horrid place,' Carol said, and Therese laughed so loudly she scared the birds.

Elaine was not what Therese had expected. Her three children ran through guests' legs and tugged at dresses and stole caramel apples, and she swung them onto her hip and up into her arms, and Therese thought of the way Carol had lifted Rindy. Her husband was a heavy man who scolded his children and talked to his guests in a booming voice, and Therese thought of Harge. Elaine was everywhere and talked to everyone and made sure everyone had generous portions of turkey with cranberry sauce or pecan pie with whipped cream, all while wiping off the mouths of her children and dusting off the suit of her husband and shaking Therese's hand. She did it with a calmness and an ease that Therese had only ever seen in Carol.

Therese did not talk to anyone in particular. There were some distant relatives of Carol's that she did not want to meet. There was a young man, Peter, who got her another drink, and she hoped he would ask her to dance. He did. Many of Elaine's friends were dancing with their husbands. Over Peter's shoulder, Therese glimpsed Carol in her storm grey dress and saw her disappear in a swarm of relatives and childhood friends. Elaine, Therese thought, was very different from Carol. If she had met her in any other situation, in any other place, on any other day, Therese might not have noticed the resemblance. She glimpsed Carol again between the swaying couples, this time arm in arm with Elaine, and something burst within her. No, she thought, Elaine was not Carol. Elaine was Carol in a different world. Elaine was what Carol might have been.

Therese excused herself and left Peter standing there on his own, by the dancers. A waiter gave her a glass of wine, and she walked out into the cold. She walked onto the porch and further out onto the grass. She walked out towards the trees that she could barely see, swaying in the wind like the couples had swayed, and fought back tears. She was angry with herself. In the darkness, Therese stopped and looked up, shivering. She waited for her vision to clear so she could see the stars.

Someone wrapped a scarf around her. Therese felt the hands press her shoulders, gently. 'Don't cry on me,' Carol said. The scarf smelled of her.

'I'm not.' Therese's breath was frosty.

Carol came to stand beside her. Therese looked and saw, in the light that spilled from the house, a tear, like a shooting star, on Carol's cheek. Therese longed to kiss it away, but knew she could not. It made her, for a moment, furious. Carol brushed the tear away.

'Terrible Thanksgiving,' Carol said. Therese choked on her wine. 'Seems like overcooking the damn turkey runs in the family.' Therese laughed, but her laughter was lost to the wind, and she was silent.

'You look nice when you dance.' Carol had watched her during the party, Therese thought. 'Dance with him. I don't mind, you know.' She reached for Therese's glass of wine, and their fingers touched.

There was a bit from a D.H. Lawrence poem – _New Heaven and New Earth_ – that came to Therese suddenly, out of the dark. She had once read it at the Home.

 _I, new-risen, resurrected, starved from the tomb  
_ _starved from a life of devouring always myself  
_ _now here was I, new-awakened, with my hand stretching out  
_ _and touching the unknown, the real unknown, the unknown unknown._

That was what it was like, alone with Carol. Yes, that was what it was like – reaching for the unknown, the space she had been flung out of.

'Come back inside,' Carol said, and gave her her wine. Fury surged through Therese, and she knew that Carol felt it. Then Carol took a risk. It was so dark out. No one would notice. She leaned dangerously close. She whispered in Therese's ear: 'Promise you'll dance with _me_ tomorrow.'

Carol's breath warmed her neck and warmed every inch of her. Therese knew that Carol could see her smile. The promise unfurled before her over the black lawn into the black forest. There it was, she thought, the unknown – even here. Elaine had not taken it from her, and the fear in her limbs subsided. Therese, exhausted, felt triumphant. She turned and saw Carol's black silhouette ahead of her, swaying in the wind, swaying to the music. Tomorrow, she thought.


	4. On Broadway (Early December)

_A/N: A prompt from anonymous on Tumblr: Carol puts her beloved fur coat around Therese._

* * *

 _On Broadway (Early December)_

On Broadway, the cold rain came down in torrents. The audience streamed out and into the rain, and Carol and Therese, like many others, sought shelter under the awning of the Fulton Theatre. Therese had taken Carol to see _Gigi_. The play starred an actress of about Therese's age, named Audrey Hepburn. Harkevy had gotten her two tickets, and she had been looking forward to it for months. What a shame, Therese thought, that things could be seen for the first time only once.

Carol asked her what she thought of the acting, of the set. Therese could not say a word. The actress, Audrey Hepburn, had been wonderful, and the set had been horrid, and Therese was infuriated. She could have designed a set to do Audrey Hepburn justice. She could have made it perfect. She could not say anything. It was the curse of passion, she knew. She was trembling, and she felt Carol put first her arm around her, then her coat. It was large enough for the two of them. Carol was scanning Broadway for a free taxi.

The fur of the coat was soft against Therese's neck. It was filled with the scent of Carol's perfume. A ridiculous thought came to Therese. She remembered Sister Alicia at the Home, showing them the religious icons, one by one. The icons were no bigger than the palm of Sister Alicia's hand – Christ in gold, Mary in red, the child in white. She remembered liking them because Sister Alicia liked them. She remembered Sister Alicia saying, with a smile, that if anyone touched one without her permission, she would not smile for a whole year.

When she was alone at their apartment on Madison Avenue, Therese would sometimes open Carol's wardrobe and smooth out the hems of her skirts or the collars of her shirts. She would never touch Carol's mink coat. It hung there – Carol's – golden in the sunlight. On Broadway, Carol's arm was pressed against her own. The rain had turned into lazy snow. Therese's hand gripped the coat. Sister Alicia would never forgive her. She had stepped into one of her icons.

'Gotcha!' Carol said. A man on the sidewalk had seen the taxi, too. 'Oh no you don't.'

Carol was quicker. She took their umbrella, stepped out into the snow, and hailed the taxi. She left the coat with Therese. It swallowed Therese up like a dream, so warm that she felt feverish. She wanted to be buried in it. Therese saw Carol, in red, under a streetlight, open the taxi door. Carol turned and saw Therese, in the coat. The snow fell. Carol beckoned to her, to her and no one else. Therese felt so alive that she thought she would die.

'Need an umbrella, miss?' asked a man beside her. She had spotted him looking at her in the theater.

'No, thanks,' Therese said, then thought better of it. She had him walk her across the sidewalk, in the coat. She found herself putting her feet where Carol put them. It felt strange, as if she were putting on an act. The city seemed darker and more vivid. If she looked into a mirror now, would it be like looking at herself across the counters of Frankenberg's? She would not wear the coat again. She got into the taxi, thanked the man, and closed the door.

'Who was that?' Carol asked.

'No one,' Therese said. Carol was smiling. 'I didn't want to get your coat wet,' she explained.

This struck Carol as hysterically funny. 'Can I have it back?' she laughed. 'I'm freezing.'

The wet snow flung itself against the windows. Carol sat up to put on her coat. 'Still mooning over Audrey?' Therese watched as Carol flicked her hair out from under the collar. 'If Audrey knew what was good for her, she'd be mooning over you.' Therese smiled.

'The Colony on 61st, was it, ma'am?' the driver asked. Carol told him it was.

'The Colony restaurant?' Therese looked at Carol, at her profile, with Broadway darkening and whitening behind her, her hair a little wet.

'I'm starved,' Carol said. She pulled the coat around her, closer than she usually did. 'I saw you draped in furs, and I thought we should go where the movie stars go.' Carol gave her a look.

She took Carol's hand so that the taxi driver could not see. Carol's hand was cold. Therese's thumb brushed the edge of Carol's coat. She wondered where Audrey Hepburn was now, where she was going, with whom. She wondered how Audrey Hepburn felt, whether she could feel like Therese did. No, she could not, Therese thought. Even she could not.

The taxi left Broadway behind, but Carol's hand did not leave her own.

* * *

 _A/N: Fun facts: 'Gigi' opened on November 24, 1951, at the Fulton Theatre in New York. It was, of course, Audrey Hepburn's breakthrough role. And the Colony restaurant is where Audrey Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart go out to eat in 'Sabrina', which was released in 1954 - Carol and Therese are ahead of their time. I realize that this is mostly fluff but I couldn't help myself... Hope you still like it!_


	5. On Madison Avenue (Early April)

_A/N: A prompt from lazylittlenomad on Tumblr: Carol's birthday._

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Early April)_

On Madison Avenue, the telephone rang. The floor of the living room was strewn with bits of cardboard, bits of paper, photographs, drawings, and the beginnings of a new model for a new set. In the middle of it, Therese, home alone, lay sprawled on the floor, fingers fiddling, feet jiggling to the magnificent music. When the record stopped spinning, she got up and played it again. It was Billie Holiday's latest record: _Billie Holiday Favorites_. Therese had found it on the kitchen counter that morning. The note had said, demurely: _You're my favorite._ It was from Carol, of course. Of course.

Billie Holiday had been singing for Therese all day. The music surrounded her. It wound its way through the apartment, soared out through the open windows, out onto the balcony. It hovered over Madison Avenue. A keen pedestrian may have heard the last of its melodies. It spun Therese a vast, glistening web. From its strings, she drew her walls, her rooms, her palaces. She saw them suspended above her, around her. She was beginning to make the apartment her own.

The telephone rang four more times before Therese heard it. She swore. She never would have sworn before she met Carol. It was Abby calling. Abby was exceptionally exuberant.

'Congratulations!' Abby hollered over the music.

'With what?' Therese shouted, rather rudely. 'Hold on.' She went to turn down the music.

'It's Carol's birthday,' Abby said when she got back. 'Didn't you know?'

Therese nearly hung up on her. Quickly, she lied that, of course, she knew. She even told Abby she could reach Carol at the furniture store.

Therese's new watch told her it was one in the afternoon. She swore again, then swore to stop swearing. She cleaned up the living room so as not to annoy Carol and searched the whole apartment for her coat. Carol had never mentioned her birthday, and Therese had lived with the knowledge that it would leap out at her one day. Leap out it certainly did. On her way out, she heard the dying strains of Billie Holiday's voice. She paused, then giggled. _Favorites_ had been Carol's present to her on her very own birthday. Of course. When she reached the street, she realized that today was Billie Holiday's birthday, too.

Therese had not yet been outside that day. If she had, she would have known beyond a shadow of a doubt that this day was Carol's. She saw the clouds mirrored in the roofs of the cars, saw the sun light up the buildings, saw the wind catch at coats, heard the mad men argue, heard the children play, saw the traffic lights change color. Therese heard a song in everything, saw Carol in everything. A man snapping his fingers, a woman lighting her cigarette, a girl fixing her scarf, a baby stretching its arms, a cab pulling over, papers dropped, the moving shadows. If only she could spend all of this day with Carol.

She went out to dinner with Carol that evening, when the sun and clouds were gone. They ate out nearly every night. Carol made a reservation from work and never told Therese where. They always went someplace different, to places Therese never knew and always loved. Therese did not bring up Carol's birthday over dinner. Carol would not want her to. Carol did note that Therese was dressed very nicely, and Therese, for once, did not take dessert.

When they returned to Madison Avenue, Carol disappeared into the bedroom. Therese ran to take out the many-colored flowers, to turn off the lights and turn on the music.

 _Time on my hands, you in my arms…Nothing but love in view…_

She ran to the kitchen to put candles in the cake. She did not get to take it into the living room. She smelled the smoke from Carol's cigarette.

'What's all this?' she heard Carol say.

Therese was lighting the last candle. 'Happy birthday! You didn't tell me, so I did what I could.'

'My, my, got any other tricks up your sleeve?'

Carol was standing in the doorway to the kitchen. She was barefoot. That was why Therese had not heard her enter. Her cigarette glowed at her waist, orange like the candles on the cake. Carol raised it to her mouth, and it cast a shadow across her beautiful face.

 _Without your love…I'm like a song without words…_

'Only this.' Therese put down the matches and picked up a small black box.

The cigarette stayed at Carol's mouth. She took the box from Therese and put it on the table. She took out the necklace. It was silver, its silver pendant like a teardrop. The silver reflected the orange of Carol's cigarette. Therese had seen the necklace in the window of a vintage shop on Bowery two weeks ago and had been waiting for the right moment to give it to Carol. She knew what to get Carol now.

'Turn it over,' Therese said. Carol did. Therese had had the back engraved at Tiffany's today. The engraving said, simply: _To C. From T. 4/7/51._

Carol laid the necklace on the table and sat down.

 _Mandy is two…You ought to see her eyes of cornflower blue…They really look as if they actually knew…That she's a big girl now…_

'I'll help you put it on,' Therese said.

Carol placed her cigarette in the ashtray. She raised her hands and pushed her blond hair away. Therese fixed the necklace around Carol's throat, straightened it along her warm skin. Carol's chest rose and fell in a long sigh.

Therese sat down beside her. 'Carol–'

 _Mummy is blue…Because her little girl is going on three…But Miss Amanda she's as proud as can be…'Cause she's a big girl now…_

Carol was rubbing out her cigarette to the rhythm of the song. Carol, Therese knew, was not thinking of herself, but perhaps of some other version of herself, perhaps of Rindy, whose birthday – Therese remembered suddenly – was this month. 'Carol,' Therese said again. She touched Carol's arm. She placed her hand on Carol's cheek. Carol did not look at her, but inclined her face, just a bit, towards Therese's hand, like a rare animal. The phonograph stopped, to Therese's relief. To Carol's, too, it seemed.

Carol got up, turned on the light, and poured herself a drink. 'Let's have some of that cake,' she said. 'What kind is it?'

'Chocolate.'

Carol whistled.

Therese blew out the candles for Carol. She made a wish. She wished for Carol to be happy. She began to cut up the cake with a fancy knife from Carol's house. 'They say chocolate's supposed to make you feel happy,' Therese said.

Carol, behind her, was silent. So silent, that Therese turned to see if anything was the matter. Carol's fingers fiddled with the necklace. Carol was staring at her, her gray eyes ablaze with an anger that Therese had never seen. Had she said something wrong? Carol was staring at her, at all of her, and straight through her, as if she could see someone standing behind Therese that Therese could never know was there, as if she knew something about Therese that Therese could never know. When she finally spoke, Carol was far from angry.

'How on earth,' Carol said, 'could I not be happy?'

Therese said nothing. They ate half of the cake on the living room floor, by the flowers.

The next day, Therese wondered whether Carol would be wearing her necklace. She was.

* * *

 _A/N: Fun facts: I made Carol's birthday April 7th because that's the birthday of Virginia Kent Catherwood, Highsmith's real-life lover and one of her major inspirations for the novel. In the book, Rindy's birthday is in April (p. 169, 'The Price of Salt' - London: Bloomsbury, 2010 edition). April 7th happens to also be Billie Holiday's birthday. The lyrics quoted are from three songs in 'Billie Holiday Favorites', which was released March/April 1951 (track list: discogs*com/Billie-Holiday-Billie-Holiday-Favorites/master/706144): 'Time On My Hands' (youtube*com/watch?v=dC9-g7tiTdE), 'Without Your Love' (youtube*com/watch?v=8_rDQQ35lcA), and 'Mandy Is Two' (youtube*com/watch?v=fv2gQk2YXVs). Sorry, they won't allow me to put full links!_

 _To the lovely reviewer who requested a scene with Abby: Don't worry, this was only a little Abby cameo. There's more of Abby coming up!_

 _Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone! Next scene will be very Christmas-themed…_


	6. On Madison Avenue (Late December)

_A/N: Two prompts from anonymous on Tumblr: 1) Carol and Therese celebrate Christmas together 2) there's mistletoe. Warning: contains a lot of fluff. I still feel like it's Christmas, so I hope this isn't too late..._

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Late December)_

On Madison Avenue, Therese was in charge of decorating the tree. On Christmas Eve, she was making the finishing touches. She had spent days working on it, taking photographs, analyzing it from every angle. Carol had bought such a ridiculous number of ornaments – glittering baubles and exotic birds and fragile snowflakes – that she had almost forgotten to get the tree itself. When it finally arrived, they found that it barely fit in the living room. This was hysterical. It was a ridiculously large tree. It filled the apartment with its smell of Christmas.

Whenever Therese glimpsed it, through doorways, bright at night, green in the day, on her way out, she imagined herself the heroine of _The Nutcracker_. Carol, wearing her best dress, had taken Therese to see the ballet at New York City Center the week before, surprising Therese with tickets, with jewelry, with champagne, with stolen smiles. Their tree looked like it had leapt straight off _The Nutcracker_ 's set. Therese imagined that, overnight, it and everything on it would, like in the ballet, suddenly come to life and whisk them away to a winter wonderland where they could love and love forever.

'Don't forget these, my darling,' Carol said.

Therese was standing on the ladder by the tree, and Carol's hand appeared beside her. She was holding the string of angels that Therese had cut out last year, at Carol's house. All twenty-two of them.

'You saved them!' Therese took the angels from her.

There was a hint of melancholy, strange and sweet, in Carol's eyes that night. 'They saved me,' she said.

All through the evening, the radio played Christmas songs – Frank Sinatra, and Bing Crosby, and Doris Day. Christmas had become Therese's favorite holiday. From the ladder, Therese would often look over her shoulder to find Carol looking back at her, a drink or a cigarette in her hand, sometimes fiddling with the necklace Therese had given her for her birthday. It crossed Therese's mind that this month last year she had been working at Frankenberg's. For a sickening second, she was convinced that she was dreaming, and that the apartment would melt away in the morning, and that Carol was not there at all.

But Carol was there. Carol was.

Around midnight, Carol called her over to the living room door. When Therese joined her, Carol slipped her fingers under her arm and took her hand. Carol was looking at something above their heads. 'Don't you just love plants?'

Therese followed her gaze up, to where she had hung the mistletoe. 'Oh you!' Therese said, and began to laugh. Carol's lips were already on her neck. It tickled. Therese laughed and laughed.

'Stop laughing!'

'I can't!'

So Carol kissed her.

The laughter lost to the kiss. Carol pulled on her hand, and Therese wrapped her arm all the way around Carol's waist. Carol's lips tasted of rye and very dark chocolate. Therese, sober, felt very drunk.

She heard a mewl. Something soft wove its way between their feet. Carol pulled away. Therese tried to pull her back.

'I swear,' Carol cried out, 'if that goddamn cat–' Therese kissed her, and Holiday knew to leave them alone. Therese kissed her and kissed her until Carol announced that she needed another drink or she would die.

Therese flung herself on the sofa and waited for Carol to return. Holiday came to lie on top of her. Outside, it was snowing, and the city that never slept was falling asleep. She wanted to throw open the windows and shout from the rooftops, but she could not move. On the radio, Sinatra was singing _I'll Be Home For Christmas_. This was it, she thought. This was what they sang about in songs, wrote about in books, danced about in ballets, sobbed about on street corners. Whatever happened next, she had this. She had this moment with Carol.

Carol, as if plucked from Therese's mind, appeared in the doorway, under the mistletoe, in the gleam of the Christmas lights.

'Come to bed,' Carol said. Therese looked at her, felt herself falling in love, falling asleep. 'Or Santa won't have time to put presents under the tree.'

'Santa only brings presents if you're good,' Therese said cheekily.

Carol winked at her. 'And we're so good together.'

Therese's tired heart fluttered. She watched as Carol walked to the bedroom, hips swinging to the music. She waited, then followed. Holiday followed, too.

* * *

 _A/N: I'm sorry, I had to give them a cat. And a cat named Holiday, at that. I'm sorry. Don't worry, there'll be a little flashback about how the cat happened… Here's Sinatra doing his thing: youtube*com/watch?v=1pk-SLQPYJ0 Next time: Paris and the Eve of a New Year. (Although it'll be a little wait till then - I'm very sorry - because my new semester at university starts this weekend and I have a lot of work to do. But I will definitely write more!)_


	7. In Paris (December into January)

_A/N: This one combines two prompts from anonymous on Tumblr: 1) Carol and Therese in Paris 2) Carol gets jealous. It's quite a bit longer than the other ones – more of a one-shot than a drabble – because I made you wait for an age and because there's so much to do on New Year's Eve in Paris._

 _Hope you like it and very sorry for the long wait! (Also sorry that I keep posting these a holiday late – Happy Easter!)_

* * *

 _In Paris (December into January)_

In Paris, the snow fell thickly. Therese had never seen such white snow in her life. She could only imagine what it looked like on a negative, but she would have to wait until 1952 to develop all the photographs. Carol had whisked them off to Paris on a whim, had awoken early on Christmas Day, had shivered and smoked, restless. Therese knew that she missed Rindy like a hole in the head and felt guilty for it. Nothing Therese could say could console her, but at least Therese knew something more now.

'Let's go to Paris!' Carol had cried, and Therese had looked at her. Carol was overcompensating. Therese let her – if it made her happy.

Five days later they awoke in Paris, just in time for New Year's Eve. To think that Richard had bought tickets months in advance, when Carol knew people left and right. It was absurd really, but they had arrived just before the snowstorm, which raged in the evening and through the night, and had found a room in the Hôtel Regent's Garden because of it, and somehow it felt like it was meant to be. At the reception Carol asked whether the museums were open.

'For those who can make it to them, they are, madame,' the concierge said with a laugh.

Carol did not laugh. They waded to the Louvre.

The sky had cleared, but Paris was buried in snow. The café chairs and tables were dressed with it, a lone car sloshed through it. Cigarettes were lit with shaking hands. In the metro, people huddled together in hats and scarves and big coats, and Parisian fashion was nowhere to be seen. The city lay still – a corpse in a morgue under a sheet. They walked but seemed to go nowhere, and Carol said little, and Therese had no idea where they were. Was this Paris?

They came out of the metro, and it was Paris after all. There was the Louvre, just the way she had seen it in her guide.

'Breakfast first,' Carol said. Warm inside a café, Carol took a deep breath and ordered in French. Therese was reminded, unexpectedly, of the day Carol had first pronounced her name, over a year ago, on another continent, and of the faint desire she had felt and had forced from her mind. The desire resurfaced now, more tangible and intimate, and Therese kept it close. Carol flicked a croissant flake from the corner of her mouth. As they drank their café au laits, Therese had her pronounce everything on the menu.

At the Louvre, they wandered through crowds of French sculptures, Egyptian mummies, and the Greek, Etruscan, and Roman antiquities. Therese read Carol passages from her guide, although she knew it annoyed her. When she next looked up, Therese caught a glimpse of something. She stuffed the guide into her pocket, walked round, and found herself looking straight at the Winged Victory of Samothrace.

Nike, wings outstretched, balanced atop the Daru staircase as though she would plummet down. It seemed to Therese that if she climbed the stairs she would walk straight into Nike's immortal embrace, into the very folds of her gown, and she held her breath, could not bring herself to go. Therese felt that she, too, balanced – on the fragile summit of seeing something she had never in her life thought she would see. Would it be gone if she blinked or breathed?

She was distracted by the sight of Carol climbing the stairs ahead of her. The sound of Carol's footsteps echoed through the near empty museum. Therese saw the way Carol placed her feet on the steps, the way her thick slacks fell around her ankles, saw her hand hesitate before it touched the bannister. She wanted to tell Carol that the Victory was a Hellenic sculpture from the third century BC, that it used to grace the prow of a ship, breathless in the wind, that it was an ode to man's triumph and divine aid, one of the most remarkable sculptures ever created.

She took out her camera instead. Carol would only look at the Victory and appreciate it for Therese's sake, not for her own. She preferred to stay where she was, for just at that instant Carol reached the top of the staircase. Therese thought of the other side of the world, of the delicatessen in Pennsylvania and the man with his Dutch windmill. Carol stood alongside Nike, and Therese felt a pang of nostalgia. She took the photograph.

When they reemerged from the Louvre, it was snowing faintly. Carol noticed that Therese reached for her guide. 'Oh for goodness' sake, put that away,' Carol said. 'For you, I'll narrate.'

The white plains they crossed were the Jardins des Tuileries, luscious in spring, Carol told her, and this was the Place de la Concorde, and this the Grand and Petit Palais. Therese took photographs and made notes for set designs. They bought silk scarves from Hermès on the rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré. They bought two for themselves and one for Abby, and Carol selected a fourth one with horses in a winter landscape that could only be for Rindy.

The trees were heavy with snow. The traffic was slow. They paused on the Champs-Élysées, the Arc de Triomphe grey in the distance. 'Elysian fields,' Carol said without being asked. 'Champs-Élysées means Elysian fields.' Her breath came out like cigarette smoke, snowflakes on her lashes. Therese took another photograph.

They did everything one ought to do in Paris: ate éclairs and macaroons at Ladurée, drank hot chocolate at Angelina, missed trams, escaped the snow at the Palais Garnier, found the snow at the Eiffel Tower. Therese even heard, against all odds, a brave accordionist singing along the Seine. _C'est toi pour moi, moi pour toi dans la vie… Tu me l'a dit, l'a juré pour la vie…_ The melody hung over the icy water.

'Do you know the song?'

Carol did not. She listened. ' _Je vois la vie en rose_ ,' she echoed, but could not come up with a translation until they reached the Orangerie. 'Seeing life in rosy colors.'

Therese smiled. 'Easy living,' she replied. But Carol had hurried inside to find Monet's _Water Lilies_ from a different season.

Carol did not stay anywhere for long, Therese noticed. The Notre Dame was enough to make Therese religious, but Carol barely looked at it. A restlessness followed her. Therese had seen it in the hesitation of Carol's hand at the Louvre. She saw it in the way Carol dropped an unfinished cigarette off the bridge to Île Saint-Louis. She saw it again at the Café de Flore when they had finally settled down to lunch.

They had ordered, but Carol's fingers tapped the table as if she were waiting for someone else. Therese discreetly tried to cover her hand with her own numb one. There was the burn of cold skin on skin, before Carol leaned away into the fur of her coat. 'I'm sorry. We'll come back and see it in the sun.'

Therese could barely hear her. Outside in the snow, it seemed like it would be 1951 forever, but inside the celebrations were in full swing, the air hot, the windows moist, the people exuberant. A waiter brought Therese's hot chocolate. 'S'il vous plaît, mademoiselle.'

Therese thanked him with her first ' _Merci_ '. She did not want Carol to think she was unhappy. 'When were you last here?' she asked loudly.

'Oh,' Carol said, 'a long time ago. Before the war.'

Therese had to strain her ears to make out anything. 'Is it very different now?'

Carol thought about this. 'The buildings, the cemeteries, the people… The colors are different. Paris seems older.' She smiled. 'Like me, I guess. Drink your _chocolat chaud_ before it's _froid_.'

Therese suddenly realized that Carol was patronizing her. She did not know where the realization had come from. Perhaps it was because Carol was telling her less and less and now made no effort to be heard, but it was as though she had begun to retreat from Therese – as she had once before, in Sioux Falls – subsumed by a gloom, grey as the city. Frightened, Therese thought of a younger, childless Carol in a younger, more colorful Paris. She wanted to show that she could understand, wanted to ask something else, but they were interrupted by a young man from the next table.

' _Mesdames_ , can I get you any drinks _pour la Saint-Sylvestre_?'

Carol was apologetic. ' _Désolée._ We just ordered.'

'Dessert on us then!' The rest of his group chimed in.

Before Therese knew what was happening, their tables had been pushed together and the young man had been introduced as Vincent. He had a short brown beard and kind eyes. 'So you are Americans in Paris?' he said. Carol laughed loudly, and envy latched onto Therese. Ashamed, she rejected it.

There were some twenty people in Vincent's company, eating oysters and drinking champagne. They were all very well dressed, presumably for New Year's. Were these the _bohèmes_ , the philosophers and painters of Saint-Germain-des-Prés that Therese had read about? They did not look like it. Therese tried to be polite by talking to the man to her left, but he only spoke French. She did not feel like talking to anyone other than Carol anyway, and Sartre was nowhere in sight.

Instead, a burst of laughter drew her gaze to the other end of Vincent's group, where a woman with dark hair held three people enthralled. From her broad gestures and red-lipped smile, so un-American, Therese tried to surmise what sort of story she could be telling. She was wearing a cream suit that Therese had never seen any woman in New York wear. The woman looked up and at Therese, and Therese looked away.

By the time they had finished their lunch and said their goodbyes, Therese was fed up with people speaking French. Once outside, she found out that Vincent had invited them to his Saint-Sylvestre – New Year's Eve, Carol explained – dinner party.

'We can be back at the hotel before the clock strikes twelve, if you like,' Carol was saying. 'We should go. You might meet Simone de Beauvoir and prefer her to me.'

'Will we have time to change?' Therese could think of nothing else to ask.

'Let's buy something new!' Where had Carol's exuberance come from? 'You have to wear something new on New Year's Eve. It's tradition.'

Carol bought Therese a dress from Dior. A wild extravagance, but it would only be 1951 once, and Therese could not pretend she did not like its layers of navy blue taffeta, could not pretend she did not like it very much. Carol changed out of her slacks and into a cocktail dress, sleeveless and white, and Therese no longer cared for her own reflection.

'Is this all right?' Carol asked easily.

Therese could say nothing.

Carol almost smiled. 'I'll take that as a yes.'

It made Therese forget, for a little while, that she would not be spending New Year's alone with Carol. Vincent's apartment was in the Latin Quarter. The phonograph played Chopin piano concertos, the table was covered with lace and silver, there were more people than there had been at lunch and even better dressed, yet Therese felt disappointed. Over dinner, Carol was engaged in a deep conversation in French with a group of glitzy men, and Therese sat next to Vincent. He was closer to her age than to Carol's and studied at the Sorbonne, and although Therese resented him at first, she did not mind him in the end.

He apologized ten times over the _foie gras_. 'You must have thought me terribly rude when we met. I did not realize you did not speak any French.'

Therese resolved to learn the language, even if they never came back. 'It's my first time here,' she said. 'Thank you for inviting us.'

' _De rien_! And you like the city?'

'Very much.'

'I promise it is not always so glacial! Carole' –that was how he pronounced her name– 'said you are part set designer, part photographer.'

Therese smiled. 'I suppose I am.'

He beamed at her. 'I must have you meet my old friend, Mireille. We studied together in London. She speaks English, too. She is a genius photographer and journalist. Whose work are you inspired by? Ah, Brassaï, _bien sûr_!'

Vincent talked a lot to her, and Therese felt some of the disappointment wear off, but once they left the table he went to show Carol his furniture, and she was alone again. The phonograph had switched to French chansons. She ate _papillotes_ by the window and thought she could spot the tip of the Notre Dame in the light of the fireworks, when someone said her name. Therese turned to see the woman in the cream suit.

'You changed clothes since lunch. A wonderful dress.' The woman's accent had a pleasant lilt. She introduced herself as Vincent's friend, Mireille.

They shook hands. 'Therese Belivet,' Mireille repeated. 'Therese could be French, except Belivet…'

'Czech,' Therese provided.

' _Mon Dieu_. And yet Vincent tells me you are from New York.' There was a mysterious glint in her eye that reminded Therese of Carol. She looked younger up close, her face sharp and freckled.

'So,' Mireille said after they had spoken a little about photography, 'what will you remember most about Paris?'

'The food,' Therese said. Mireille laughed, a light laugh. 'And the Winged Victory of Samothrace.'

She raised an eyebrow. 'Nike. A special choice. Not French, of course. But I remember when I first saw her…' She sighed. 'I thought that we must owe everything to her, that she had birthed us all – all us artists and our children. Am I making sense? Have you seen the Elgin marbles?'

Therese shook her head.

'Oh, you must! I bet, when you visit London, it will be what you remember most about London also. Not the English, but the Greeks!' Therese began to laugh. Mireille laughed, too, and offered her cigarette case. 'I made a photo series once, many Saint-Sylvestres ago, of your Nike.'

'Did you?'

'Have you photographed her?' She meant Nike.

Therese thought of her own pictures of Nike, of Carol beside her, her face from below, from the side, the curl of her hair, her solemn expression, and suddenly knew that the sculpture would mean nothing to her on Mireille's photographs. 'Yes,' she said.

'We must do an exchange.' Mireille lit both their cigarettes with a golden lighter. Her nails were white at the tips, a French manicure. 'I wish I had mine with me, but _hélas_! they are at my apartment around the corner, on Rue Mouffetard.'

Was that an invitation? They were offered more champagne, and Mireille eagerly took two glasses and gave one to Therese. 'Vincent always has the very best,' she whispered. 'Dom Pérignon. If you can't stand any of us, at least enjoy the champagne.'

Therese laughed in spite of herself. 'What shall we toast to?'

'To the Greeks!' She raised her glass. 'Oh, and 1952.'

They laughed again, and Therese suddenly became aware of Carol watching them. She looked over Mireille's shoulder, and Carol looked away. Carol was standing with a group that included Vincent, but was not talking, and Therese saw her shift her weight from one foot to the other, saw the folds of her new dress crease around her waist, saw her raise her hand to push back her hair. Therese breathed. Mireille was saying something about New Year's resolutions.

Then Carol was beside them. A head taller than Mireille, she towered over her like the eight-foot Victory. 'I don't believe we've met.' Carol extended a hand. 'Carol Aird.'

Therese thought she saw something flash in Mireille's dark eyes, recognition and, perhaps, dismay. 'Mireille Monic.'

' _Enchantée_. Therese, it's half past eleven. We should go if you want to make it back.'

'Yes.' Therese rubbed out the cigarette Mireille had given her. 'We should go.'

'So soon?' Mireille said. 'You will miss the dancing! How long are you here for?'

Carol replied before Therese could. 'We leave on the 2nd, I'm afraid,' she lied, and Therese looked at her, surprised.

' _Quel dommage_. I will have to send you those photos. And you will have to send me yours!' She was called away into the crowd, and the pale hand with the cigarette disappeared last. Something about the way Mireille moved had an air of superficiality about it, a superficiality that Carol could never have.

Carol had gone to get their coats, but when Therese found the front door, Carol had already said her farewells and was making her way downstairs. Therese quickly thanked Vincent, kissed him good-bye, and rushed out. ' _À l'année prochaine_!' she heard him call.

She hurried down the dim staircase, struggling to put on her coat. 'Carol!' The crowd roared on the streets, and she caught a glimpse of Carol's white dress. 'Carol, wait!' Fireworks crackled. She was almost close enough to touch her now, to grab her arm, make her stop, when there was the rustle of stiff fabric, and Carol's mouth was on hers.

Lipstick and champagne clung to Carol's lips. Therese fell into her, but Carol's arm was there, holding her tight. 'Someone will see,' Therese gasped.

'Let them.' Carol kissed her again, and for an instant Therese felt the full length of her body against her own. Then Carol was gone, down the stairs.

Relief washed over Therese. A throng of celebrating Parisians swept them up on the street. 'We'll never make it back,' Carol said. Therese did not care. Carol took her hand. 'Let's go to the river.'

Carol pushed through the crowd, and Therese followed, her hand warm in Carol's despite the cold. Fireworks went off above their heads. They reached the Seine just before midnight and found a place along the water. It was not possible, Therese thought, not possible that this whole year, this whole year spent with Carol, would be over in a moment. It was not enough for the year, this moment, could never be – but here, in Paris, it might just come close.

The Notre Dame struck midnight, and the sky erupted with light. Didn't they call Paris the City of Light?

Carol looked at her. 'Happy New Year.'

'Happy New Year.'

Therese knew she could not kiss her, so she watched as the fireworks illuminated Carol's face. 'My angel,' Carol said. She leaned forward, and Therese's heart rose to meet her. It was a kiss on the cheek. 'Thank you.'

For what? Thank you for what? Therese wanted to ask. But even as the question took shape, Therese knew its answer: for all that could not be said.

* * *

 _A/N: I tried to keep this as historically accurate as possible – I hope no one notices any glaring errors! Also, this one contained a lot of book references… Of course, to Carol and Therese's first lunch and to Therese and Genevieve's meeting but mainly to this line: 'Therese turned around, and Carol's beauty struck her like a glimpse of the Winged Victory of Samothrace.' (p. 188, 'The Price of Salt' – London: Bloomsbury, 2010 edition)._

 _Fun facts: Brassaï is a great photographer who rose to fame in 1933 – you can look his work up if you like! The movie 'An American in Paris' came out in 1951 and 'La Vie en rose' was released in 1946 (Therese's accordionist is helping the lesbians by singing it in the second person).  
Here's Édith Piaf killing it:  
youtube*com/watch?v=kFzViYkZAz4  
_ _Here's Jean Sablon singing in the second person:  
_ _youtube*com/watch?v=jzYdS_BbLu0_

 _The French chanson at Vincent's apartment could also be typical Jean Sablon:  
_ _youtube*com/watch?v=fWrWN8Ms48o  
_ _An even more romantic chanson:  
_ _youtube*com/watch?v=ApMGZVyEtAY  
_ _The Chopin could be something beautiful and dramatic like this:  
_ _youtube*com/watch?v=LPa7jjeKVR4_

 _More fun facts: Christian Dior released his iconic 'New Look' line in 1947, which is where Therese's dress comes from:  
_ _metmuseum*org/toah/works-of-art/C.I.48.13a,b/  
_ _On a Dior model:  
_ _telegraph*co*uk/inluxury/43283/1408631894637/new8898jpg/ALTERNATES/h585-var/New8898*jpg  
_ _And on the left:  
_ _media*vogue*com/r/rh_480,w_480/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/dior-new-look-in-vogue-6-7_130144626926*jpg_

 _Carol's dress is by Jacques Fath (photographed in 1950):  
_ _s-media-cache-ak0*pinimg*com/564x/3d/1f/4c/3d1f4c3b4bc381b6b08504dcddc341f2*jpg_

 _Plus I like to think Carol bought this from Dior for the weekend (fur coat etc.):  
marieclaire*media*co*uk/11116/000076181/300e_orh1000w646/rexfeatures-443055f*jpg_

 _P.S. If you (just like me) really want to fancast Mireille, here's a picture of Eva Green from 'Casino Royale' (you're welcome):  
_ _s-media-cache-ak0*pinimg*com/736x/37/c7/bf/37c7bf1a481dfb55ddce0d43d8e654cb*jpg_

 _(Side note: I don't know how long it will take until I'll be able to upload the next scene, because I have lots of exams coming up, but I hope you'll stick around! I'll stop talking now.)_


	8. In Paris (December into January) II

_A/N: A little morning-after following the previous 'In Paris' scene._

* * *

 _In Paris (December into January) II_

In Paris, the snow had fallen overnight, soundless as a thief. The streets were white as the sheets they slept in, as if the entire world were theirs – to lie in, to love in. Therese leaned against the window, the glass cold against her arm, to take a photograph. There were no footprints, none at all. Maybe she and Carol would make the first ones. When they had returned late last night, Carol had sat on the edge of the bed and telephoned Abby: 'The New Year looks just fine from where I'm at, darling.'

Therese remembered thinking that it had been such a Carol thing to say. She remembered sitting down next to her, touching the white fabric of her dress. She remembered Carol hanging up, Carol's hand on her own. ' _Mon ange_ ,' Carol had called her, her voice a glimpse of another world.

 _Mon ange_. Carol would never wear that dress in 1951 again. Therese's breath fogged up the window, and she traced the date in it with her sleeve. _1/1/52._ That morning, she had almost woken Carol by groping in the sheets as in a wild, thrashing sea. She had forgotten where she was. It had seemed possible, then and there, that she would forget everything else, too. Was that possible? That she could wake in the New Year and remember nothing from the old one? That she could wake and it would all be wiped out like the city had been wiped out by the snow?

A sound from the bed made her start.

'What town is this?'

Therese began to smile. 'Paris,' she said.

'Awfully cold…'

She stepped away from the window. Carol stretched and the sheets shifted, and, for a moment, Therese saw the outline of her body in the covers as if Bernini had sculpted it. Carol rolled onto her stomach, and the outline was gone, but her hand appeared, nails red against the pillowcase.

Therese put down the camera, crossed the room, and crawled into bed as quickly as she could.

'And who are you?'

She was kissing all the knuckles on Carol's hand. 'Yours.'

Carol shuddered. Therese saw goose bumps climb up her wrist, onto the back of her hand, onto her fingers. 'God, you're freezing! Go be someone else's.'

'No, I won't.' She embraced her. Carol gasped. She kissed Carol's arm and her naked shoulder and the base of her throat, and the goose bumps followed everywhere. She dug her fingers into Carol's naked side and felt the goose bumps there, too. She placed her fingers into the spaces between Carol's ribs. She knew, from experience, that they fit there perfectly. She knew, from Carol, why her hands had their shape, her legs their length, her back its curve. She knew what nature was. Carol had given it to her, to photograph, to design, to see. Did she know she had?

'If you didn't remember me,' Therese whispered, 'would you still love me?'

Carol moved away with a sigh. She reached for the telephone, and Therese saw that there were streaks of pink on her back and waist. 'What a question.'

 _Deux jus d'oranges, deux café au laits, croissants, pain au chocolats, baguettes_ … Carol ordered breakfast. Her voice was flat now, not the way it had been the night before, not the way it had been by the Seine. Carol was not thinking of Therese as Therese was thinking of her.

She felt a flush of anger, but not at Carol, never at Carol. She sat up and pulled her robe tight around her. Carol hung up the telephone with a click. 'Fine,' Therese said. 'Tell me.'

Carol raised an eyebrow. 'Tell you what?'

She was at a loss. She always thought she knew what she wanted to say until Carol asked her.

'Please, darling,' Carol said finally. 'Let's not do this today. It has nothing to–'

'It has to do with _you_!' Therese cried. Carol threw back the sheets, and she tried to stop her. 'Everything that has to do with you has to do with me!'

Carol got up anyway and put on her robe. She walked to the window that Therese had been looking out of and tugged the curtains open. The winter light spilled onto the carpeted floor, hit the gold-patterned wallpaper and the tall mirror and the corner of the bed that trapped Therese. Therese shaded her eyes. Carol looked out, framed by the light.

Out of nowhere, she spoke. 'Rindy was going to spend Christmas with us. But Harge changed his mind.' She shrugged. 'That's all there is to know. Harge–'

'That son of a bitch,' Therese said suddenly. She never would have said it before she met Carol.

Carol froze. Dust floated in the light. Then she threw back her head, and laughed, laughed and laughed.

Therese stared at her. 'I hate him,' she said. 'I hate him. Don't you?'

Carol only laughed, and Therese did not know what to think. Did Carol not understand that she meant what she said, that she hated Harge so much that she sometimes dreamed of horrible accidents that took his life and gave Carol hers? Therese leaped from the bed and ran to her. She flung her arms around Carol's neck. Carol pulled her close, so close that she could feel her laugh in every fiber of her being. She took Carol's face in her hands, touched her hair, her cheeks, her lips.

Carol's laugh began to fade. 'My dramatic orphan.' She put her arm around Therese's waist. 'Hating and hating…' Her fingers stroked Therese's hair. 'Hating…and loving…' Her fingers were warm. 'It's all exhausting. And who knows where the one ends and the other begins?'

Therese remembered the lumberyard in Sioux Falls, remembered the empty sound when Carol had hung up on her, remembered driving across an empty land in an empty car. She knew what Carol said was true, but it could not be true of Harge. 'No,' she said stubbornly. 'Hate him. Love me.'

Carol was looking out the window, her eyes cool and bright. 'All right,' she said. 'No more supervised visits. A New Year's resolution.'

'Good.'

Carol let go of her. Therese watched as she walked to the coffee table and leaned across it, as her robe fell away to reveal the bare skin of her shoulder, as her hand carefully pulled it back in place, a another gesture Therese knew she would always remember.

'So, would you?' she ventured.

'Would I what?'

'Love me? If you didn't remember me?'

Carol opened her cigarette case. 'Depends, I suppose.'

'On what?' Therese asked, too quickly.

Carol raised her head, and Therese saw that she was smiling, just a little, so little that perhaps Therese was the only person in the world who could notice. 'Well,' Carol said. Her lighter flared up. 'Would _you_?'

* * *

 _A/N: I'm hoping to interweave the various scenes with a sort of fragmented plotline about Carol and Rindy (and potentially another one concerning Therese and her job), so we'll see if it works/if anyone likes the idea! Let me know what you think! Exams are finally over! Hope everyone's well!_


	9. On Madison Avenue (Mid-May)

_A/N: A prompt from allkindsofkids on Tumblr: Carol and Therese kiss and make up after their first fight. The honeymoon is over. Easy living?_

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Mid-May)_

On Madison Avenue, the heat was suffocating. Therese desperately tried to blame the heat. Like the hand of some enormous god, it weighed down on everything in sight. No amount of air-conditioning could help. But when she finally rushed out of the apartment and away from Carol, she knew it was not the only thing to blame. On the street, mailmen sweated through their shirts and secretaries fanned themselves with magazines. Therese did not see them. She had shocked herself more than she had shocked Carol, she was sure.

She had come home after eight long hours at Harkevy's studio. They were working on a set for an Australian play, but the set itself was not working, and no one felt like doing anything to fix it, and no one but Therese seemed to have read the play anyway. She had tried not to raise her voice. She had left quietly. Then, on the way home, she had found a red cat by a fire escape between Lexington and Park, howling, shouting for her. It was one of those inexplicable things. It had seemed like the only living soul in the city that day.

She had found Carol sitting on the floor of the living room, sorting through furniture catalogues, her dress spread out around her like the petals of a flower. They had not seen each other since the night before. When Carol spotted the cat, she sighed. 'I'll only end up taking care of it, Therese,' was all she said, with an aloofness that had all of a sudden reminded Therese of walking to Frankenberg's in the cold; or of sleeping in Carol's car by the side of the road; or even – in the not-so-far-off distance – of waking up at the Home with the wind whistling in her ears. And she had heard in Carol's sigh all the sighs of all the people to whom she had expressed a desire to be more than what she was.

Even as she began to yell at her, Therese knew it was absurd. Even as she had brought up Sioux Falls. But she had done it anyway. She had even cried. Carol had borne it all silently. That was all Therese heard, as she hurried down Madison Avenue in the heat – Carol's silence.

The city hung, suspended, like from a gallows. Therese went to the restaurant off Fifth where Carol had made a reservation for that evening, only to find that it had already been cancelled. She walked all the way to the Hudson River and watched the water dance until it ate up the sun. A wave of guilt and then embarrassment and then sadness washed over her, until somehow everything she felt nullified everything else and she ended up walking back through the darkening streets filled with Carol's silence and feeling nothing at all.

Sweat prickled her shoulders and neck. On Columbus, a group of college students whistled at her. She looked at them and thought of Carol. Sitting on the floor of their apartment, Carol had been wearing a summer dress that Therese had never seen, had never even seen hanging in their closet. In the hot light, the dress had shimmered golden, had left her chest and back exposed, drops of perspiration at her throat, her skin bright pink like it sometimes was at night.

It was their first taste of summer together. And yet. No sunrise was perpetual.

At the apartment, Therese went to sleep in the second bedroom. She slept soundly, to her own surprise, and dreamed of a golden light growing brighter, growing larger, encompassing everything. The light seemed about to burst, to reveal something else, when she woke. It was early morning. Heat flooded the room. In the kitchen, she made a point of feeding the cat. Carol had prepared breakfast for her, but she did not touch it. She had slept without Carol before, after all.

When she returned late in the day, Carol was on the couch reading Joyce's _Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man_ , the evening shadows slanting in through the windows. Therese had no memory of taking the novel with her when she had moved. Carol frowned as she read, and Therese was struck by the strange idea that Carol was trying to understand something about her, Therese, the artist as a young woman. Well, if anything, it was Richard who had wanted Therese to read it and had probably read himself into it. But the novel, she had found, was nothing like Richard.

 _He turned to appease the fierce longings of his heart before which everything else was idle and alien._ _He cared little that he was in mortal sin…_ Therese almost went over to ask Carol's opinion before she remembered that she was angry. That night, the cat slept with her because Carol was no longer feeding it. She dreamed strangely, of a taxi that would only play Billie Holiday songs, driving her from one end of the island to the other, all the doors locked and the radiators on, and awoke with tears in her eyes.

The second time Carol made her breakfast, Therese threw it out. 'I can manage on my own, you know.'

Carol did not answer immediately. 'I know,' she said.

Harkevy shouted at her over the set designs and she shouted back. She worked hard, and, one way or another, the designs began to come along. The heat began to subside. Yet she slept less well, dreaming only sometimes. Days passed and she slept alone with the cat and then one night she opened her eyes and saw Carol, a black silhouette, sitting on the side of the bed. At first Therese thought she was a mirage, from a desert.

'Therese,' Carol said. She sounded tired. 'What's the matter?'

The air-conditioning dripped, like a leaking clock. It dripped for what seemed like hours. Carol got up to go.

'You're leaving?' Therese said quickly.

Carol stopped in the doorway. 'Only to the other room,' she said, but did not move. The air-conditioning dripped on. Then she turned and stepped into the bed, pulled the sheets to, and the darkness slid back into place around them. Therese thought of Romeo and Juliet. _What man art thou that, thus bescreened in night, / So stumblest on my council?_ No man.

A moment passed before Therese took her hand. They could have been anywhere in the world.

She told Carol then about work, about the bad Australian play, about how Harkevy lost his temper, and Carol squeezed her hand. It helped that she could not see Carol's face, or she might never have said a word.

'What an ordeal,' Carol said when she had finished. 'Anything I can do?'

She closed her eyes. 'Will you wear that dress tomorrow?'

'Which one?'

'With the golden flowers.'

'All right,' Carol said, and it sounded like she was smiling. 'Anything else?'

'Sleep with me?'

A sliver of light fell down and hit a strand of Carol's hair. Their hands twisted together, lives twisting. Billie Holiday had not lied, Therese thought, she had not lied, after all, and Carol's arm slipped around her hips and her body was warm, warm as the heat could never be.

Another moment passed, then something soft jumped on top of them. Carol groaned. It was the cat. He was not leaving either.

Therese named him Holiday as a reminder.

* * *

 _A/N: So sorry this took so abominably long. Thank you all so much for your patience. I'm starting my final year of university this October, so there are some tough times ahead. Hope you'll stick with me! Everyone I've met in this community has been so incredibly kind and supportive and enthusiastic and it just brightens my day. Thank you!_

 _Fun facts: the play Therese is working on is 'Buy Me Blue Ribbons', which flopped on Broadway in October 1951._

 _The red cat is looking ahead to 'Breakfast at Tiffany's': 'I don't know who I am! I'm like cat here, a no-name slob. We belong to nobody, and nobody belongs to us. We don't even belong to each other.' (s-media-cache-ak0*pinimg*com/564x/29/da/13/29da13b48ad8d309c28fbbe52f33b970*jpg)_

 _I just realized that the name Holiday actually echoes Holly Golightly… Hope everyone appreciates the irony of a cat named Holiday marking ~the end~ of C and T's honeymoon…_

 _Carol's dress (also funny because the illustration looks like it could be Carol from the book): www*sovintagepatterns*com/thumbnail*asp?file=assets/images/mccalls4111*jpg &maxx=500&maxy=0_


	10. In Birdland (Late February)

_A prompt from lazylittlenomad on Tumblr: Therese's birthday._

* * *

 _In Birdland (Late February)_

In Birdland, that was where Therese would find herself later that night. But, for the time being, she was closing the door of their apartment behind her, and slumping into the armchair Carol had conveniently placed in the hall, and closing her eyes in the deep darkness. She saw it still, with her eyes closed. The glitter of the St. Regis hotel and the cocktail glasses and laughing mouths of the stage stars and the way Harkevy had made it seem like a party for Therese, only for Therese to be passed over. Therese had not minded. She had found herself watching for Genevieve Cranell, but Genevieve Cranell did not appear. Where was she now? Therese had wondered. Still a star? Therese had wondered, wondered with a sense of _déjà vu_. She had wondered whether that meant she was getting old.

When she opened her eyes, Carol was standing in the doorway. 'Hello, birthday girl,' Carol said. She was wearing her coat.

'You're going out?' Therese sat up slowly, feeling older and older.

'Oh, we are,' Carol said.

The silence sang between them, and when Carol walked over and took her hand and helped her stand and fixed her scarf, Therese felt young again. There was a calmness to being with Carol that was like being alone in company.

Outside, Carol hailed a taxi with that curve of her arm and flick of her wrist and, inside, the car smelled of wet leather. Their hands rested next to each other on the middle seat, a habit Therese had almost grown unconscious of. Where were they going? It could be anywhere. Carol knew every place in town.

It turned out to be 44th street. The moment Therese's foot hit the pavement, she heard it, the sound of the jazz music soaring with the wind. The first few drops of rain began to fall, and Carol's voice called out to her.

Last year, she remembered in another _déjà vu_ , it would not have been Carol's voice. Last year she had spent her birthday alone in Sioux Falls, walking through the city until her hands and feet were numb. She had walked miles and miles to the river and through the parks and through the suburbs with the children jeering at her. The next day, when she had tried to get up for breakfast, she had not been able to stand. Instead, she had slept and dreamt of– Who else would she have dreamt of?

At the door, 'Ms. Aird!' was recognized immediately. There were many Ms. Airds that Therese could spend the rest of her lifetime trying to find. The idea came to her often, but although it sometimes wrung her heart with fear, tonight she reached for it and reached for Carol's arm in the dim light. They burst through a second set of doors and the music burst out to meet them. Much like walking into the Café de Flore on New Year's Eve only two months earlier, the warmth was overwhelming.

The waiter led them to a good table. Carol ordered for both of them, telling Therese to save her eyes and not to bother with the menu, and making Therese smile. The music shivered through the air, a vaulting trumpet and piano and percussion all mingling into one. Therese leaned in. 'Who is he?' she asked of the trumpet player with the horn-rimmed glasses and the odd sense of humor.

'Dizzy Gillespie,' said Carol. And then, with a laugh at the thought of a memory that Therese was not privy to: 'Abby's mad about him.'

Of course. Abby had brought Carol here. Abby who had seen so many more birthdays than Therese. Abby who had been with Carol when Carol had not been with Therese for her birthday last year. But Therese was too tired, and too old, to feel anything like bitterness, not when Dizzy Gillespie's trumpet was like something out of a holiday Judgment Day.

When their drinks arrived, Carol lifted her glass and Therese did the same. 'Happy, happy birthday,' Carol said and in her voice and eye there was a sudden flinch, of something younger than her age. It was something Therese had thought Carol was immune to, something like an eagerness to please. It was gone almost before Therese had seen it. Without thinking, Therese put down her glass and moved to take Carol's hand. But Carol had turned away and was going through her bag.

'I got you a little– Ah, here it is.' She placed it on the table in front of Therese just as the music hit a flickering note.

Therese looked at it for a while, and Carol shifted in her seat.

'Why don't you open it?' Carol said.

Therese began to, carefully taking apart the paper and folding it back against the table. There was nothing 'little' about the gift – a silver Omega watch with a black leather wristband. 'Oh, Carol,' she said. Carol reached over and took the old watch off Therese's wrist, helped her put the new one on. Later, Therese would see the engraving on the inside: _Dearest. 2/20/52._ Therese caught Carol's hand, or Carol's hand caught her own.

'You said yours ran slow,' Carol said, as if by way of an apology. 'And we can't have that if Harkevy's counting on you.'

Lately, Therese did not know how much Harkevy was counting on her. But she did not care. She was not thinking of Harkevy. She let go of Carol's hand and watched her fingers tap against the table to the music. The little watch beat against Therese's wrist. She let it. The music defied it. Harkevy's parties were fleeting, she thought, all fleeting, those smiles and drinks at the St. Regis. But here, where Carol raised her glass as Therese had seen her do so many times and might see her do many times more, and where Carol's lips curved into a tantalizing half-smile. Here, time could stand still. Here, she could fly above it, in this Birdland, with the feet of her Carol Aird already jiggling under the table.

* * *

 _Hi everyone! Sorry, it's been ages… I've now finally finished all my exams at uni, but am a bit out of practice on the writing front, so I did my best. This one's advancing Therese's fragmented narrative in this series (as with the previous installment), so the mood is different from the ones more centered on Carol, but I hope you still enjoy it! (Don't worry, I will have Carol and Therese dance at some point… Birdland was more of a sit-down club.)_

 _Fun facts: Dizzy Gillespie did actually perform at Birdland – a legendary New York jazz club open from 1949-1965 (although now revived at a different location) – on Feb. 20, 1952, when he closed a week-long set with his Sextet._

 _You can hear them playing here: youtube*com/watch?v=ESjNt-V-zRI_

 _Or here: youtube*com/watch?v=gCMja-8nk7g_

 _Also, if you're new, hello! The reference to Café de Flore is to my 'In Paris (December into January)' fic / the engraving is a parallel to Carol's birthday in 'On Madison Avenue (Early April)'. Hope you liked it!_


	11. On Madison Avenue (Late March) II

_A/N: A prompt from anonymous on Tumblr: Carol and Therese's first anniversary together. (I decided to go with the one-year anniversary of their moving in together... This is a semi-follow-up to the previous 'On Madison Avenue (Late March)' scene, but can also be read on its own.)_

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Late March) II_

On Madison Avenue, the year before, the sky had shone a strange shade of yellow, even once twilight had passed. Therese had stood looking out of the window with a sense of reverence that she could only remember from the Home. She felt that the world was very large all of a sudden, immeasurably large. She heard the sound of the seagulls in the sky, of the last delivery men on the street, of the whistling wind, and, somewhere behind her, of Carol turning off the tap in the bathroom. Finally, it was beginning to grow dark.

She turned and saw Carol's shadow cross the hall that stretched from the living room to the bedrooms. 'All yours,' Carol said in the silence.

Therese looked at her for a moment, not knowing what she meant. Then she realized Carol must have finished fixing the soap and towels for her to use. 'Thank you,' she answered, and wondered why she sounded so formal.

Carol walked away and into the bedroom, and the floor creaked under her bare feet. It seemed to Therese as if a yellow pool of light remained in the hall that she had left, a glimmer of the twilight that they had seen together. Therese walked, slowly, so that the boards would not creak, across the living room and into the hall, to the spot in which Carol had stood. She heard Carol switch on the light in the bedroom to her right. She glanced into the bathroom and saw the soap still bubbling in the drain. She looked over and saw Carol's reflection framed by the bedroom mirror, her hands poised to undo her dress.

'Can you help me with this?' Carol asked.

'Of course.'

In Carol's bedroom, the light glowed a gentler yellow, and Therese felt that it contained all the largeness of the world. A sweet, familiar smell hung in the air, clung close to Carol, and the zipper of Carol's dress slid down smoothly along the silk fabric. Without knowing what she did, Therese placed her hand against the skin underneath.

When she raised her eyes, Carol's lips were there, Carol's head tilted over her shoulder as though she were picking Therese out from her past. Their dresses shifted as they turned together, and Carol's mouth was warm, and Therese was surprised by the ease with which Carol stepped out of her dress, with which she slipped her arm around Therese's hips, with which she laughed when she saw the lipstick that covered Therese's cheeks, and the ease with which she rubbed it off again. Therese let her, and kissed the palms of her hands, her wrists.

On the bed, she helped Carol take off her stockings and kissed the side of her ankle, her calf, her knee. Carol tried to undo her dress, but Therese embraced her before she could finish. She found that she was, for some reason, crying. 'I'm sorry,' Carol said, pulling her up beside her, 'sorry, sorry,' like she had said when she had told her about the detective following them, nearly two months earlier. Carol's hands brushed away the tears.

'I've missed you,' Therese whispered. And Carol's hands touched her shorter hair, and unclasped her dress, and she had no memory of how or when she took it off, but only of Carol's fingers on her shoulders, the hush of Carol's mouth on her neck, only of pressing her face into Carol's waist, of feeling the softness of her skin, of her sigh, of feeling how the shimmer of this strange yellow light had enveloped them in their own whirling, sweeping storm.

Carol sat back down across from her, and Therese looked up, startled.

'What were you thinking about?' Carol asked.

She watched as Carol picked up the white napkin from the white table and smoothed it across her lap. 'You,' she said then.

'Oh, really? Care to share?'

Therese smiled faintly. 'Maybe later,' she said, and was interrupted by the waiter.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Carol smile, too – a private pinpoint in this large, loud, golden restaurant where they sat – and Therese felt that funny flicker of desire stir in the bottom of her heart. Later, hours later, Therese would share her mind with Carol. A year could change many things, but some, after all, remained the same.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry for the long wait and sorry that this is a bit shorter than usual! A lot of original work came up, but I felt like the length suited this scene's sort of fleeting nature…regarding both the passage of time and its eternal looping back… Hope you enjoyed!_

 _(Also, for keen viewers, a part of this piece somehow turned out to be a mirror image of the 'mirror scene' when C &T share their first kiss in the movie…_

 _Also, for those who didn't hear, a storm swept over the UK, where I live, yesterday and brought dust from the Sahara with it, turning the sky yellowish-red in the middle of the day. Somehow that inspired me to fill in the gaps of the draft of this – I guess it made me think of Therese's 'desert' metaphor/the color of Carol's hair.)_


	12. In Central Park (Late April)

_A/N: A prompt from anonymous on Tumblr: Rindy's birthday._

* * *

 _In Central Park (Late April)_

In Central Park, the clouds loomed low over the gardens and the rocks. It was not the right weather, Therese thought, for a day that Carol had waited for for weeks – ever since she had heard that Rindy would spend her birthday with her mother, unsupervised. Carol had received the news around the time of her own birthday, and Therese knew that nothing the two of them did to celebrate could compare. The telephone call had been a line from heaven. It had lit up Carol's face. She had turned up the music, and laughed more times this month than any month since the start of the year, since Harge had taken Rindy away over Christmas. What had made Harge change his mind? Carol did not care.

Therese watched them from a distance, from the sidewalk that curved from Fifth Avenue into the park and to the playground where Rindy giggled on the swing. Therese watched as the girl jumped off and into Carol's arms, and recognized, as she had before, Carol in the cock of her head and the wave of her hand. Therese had seen Rindy only twice before at their apartment. The other times Carol had to go somewhere else. Therese was not sure where exactly. But the girl had grown, briskly and almost brusquely, in the last few months. There was still Carol there, but there was also someone else, becoming more and more present in the way she walked and talked and fixed her hair. And in the way she was dressed, Therese thought. Since Carol bought the little girl clothes that she never seemed to wear.

They had decided that it was best if Therese did not join them in the park, in case Harge had someone watching. But Therese had looked around and had not seen anyone else watching. She felt she would know if there were. No, the only person watching was Therese, watching as a gust of wind sent the little girl's hat flying, and the woman ran after it, watching as though she did not know them at all, the woman and the girl, as though she were looking in through a shop window at a vision she would always want and could never have. It was an old thought, but new, in that moment. And yet, she liked to think that Carol knew she was there.

She took a photograph of them then, from a distance, with the two figures like specks of dust on the lens. When she stepped back and away from the image, she bumped into someone on the sidewalk. She turned and saw the face of Harge. But it was not Harge. 'Hey, watch where you're going!' the man shouted as he was swept away into the subway.

'Sorry!' she called back, although the man was already gone.

She walked into the park through another entrance and took photographs of the dancing trees for a Chekhov set she was meant to be working on. A boy climbed one of the trees and tore his pants on one of the branches, and she took a photograph of him, too. She bought a hot dog at a hot dog stand where no one else was and talked to the vendor for a bit, a blond man from Brooklyn whose father owned a motorcycle garage. He asked if she might want to go out for lunch one time, and she replied, not unkindly, that she did not eat anymore in order to preserve her figure. She walked away with the hot dog in hand – a touch of wry humor that Carol would have approved of, she thought.

One way or another, she always came back to Carol. Sometimes she imagined, or dreamt – as if her mind liked playing tricks on her – that her thoughts of Carol slowly dwindled, fizzled out, without her noticing. Like Carol's thoughts of Abby had, or so many people's thoughts of other people. That she would walk out, one day, and not wish to come home. After all, she now knew how Carol got dressed in the morning, how she cooked her meals, how she crossed her legs on the couch, how she slept on her side, or smiled in the sunlight.

She knew, with dead certainty, that if that ever happened, if she ever wanted to leave, Carol would let her go wherever she pleased. The knowledge that Carol would suddenly struck her with the force of an ax – even though she had not left and Carol had not watched her go. Carol would say that it was all her imagination, dipping and soaring in all the wrong directions. Standing on an empty path in a grey park, the thought made her smile, and she heard the faint strains of the song of a street musician. When she came back to reality, she always came back to Carol.

She threw out the hot dog when it was only half-finished. If anything, it was far more likely that Carol would leave her, as she had left others, because Carol had Rindy and Abby, and Therese had no one, not really. Dannie and Phil and the others from work did not really count. And why was that always the case? She sat on a bench and tried to read a book she had been meaning to read for a long time. The air was humid and hot in her throat. The flowers bloomed by her side. The clouds were gradually lowering themselves across the park as if they meant to crush her and everyone else in it. For a moment, she wished that they would. Then she put away her book and walked home.

On the bed in the spare room, she lay with her eyes closed, like a corpse or a monument, as the front door opened and fell shut, as Carol and Rindy's voices intermingled with the sound of the radio and of cups being taken out of cupboards and the image of the boy in the park dangling upside down by his ankles, and the grey birds fluttering against the grey sky, and then the ring of the doorbell, and a little girl's cry of joy, and a low voice. And then nothing.

'Why didn't you say hello when we came back?' Carol asked at dinner that night. Her eyes were greyer than before, and she was smoking again. Carol waited, but Therese said nothing. 'Was that you in the park this afternoon? Standing there like a specter of death?'

Carol had known, of course. 'I'm sorry, I shouldn't have gone. I didn't stay for long.'

'Don't apologize.'

'I wanted to see…I guess.'

Carol waited again, but Therese did not say any more. Then Carol got up and started to wash the dishes. 'You'll understand one day, when you have children of your own.'

Therese stiffened. ' _When_?'

'When, if… You know what I mean.' The dishes clattered in the sink.

'I can't have children if I stay with you.'

'You might not want to stay with me all your life,' Carol said.

Therese thought that the room might tilt, that all Carol's glasses and dishes and cups might slide off the counter and fall to the floor with a crash. But nothing happened. 'Why not?'

'You might feel differently in a year or two.' Carol finished clearing the dishes.

'Why would I?' Therese asked, and heard her voice tremble. She could have hit herself.

Carol sighed. 'Can we talk about this anoth–'

'No. No, we can't! You always say that, and we can't. We're talking about it now.' She felt that she was going to ask Carol something she was going to regret, and she felt that there was nothing she could do to stop it. 'Are you saying this because you don't want me here in a year? Is that why you're saying this?'

'Therese, I'm tired,' Carol answered, and before Therese could say anything else, Carol had left the kitchen. And that was it. Just like that, Therese's courage – or whatever it had been – was gone, and she felt nothing but a stupid frustration that she had somehow managed to make this all about herself again.

She sat in the chair in the kitchen for about an hour, looking through the windows at the blank, damp sky that had chased her out of the park. The cat named Holiday wove little paths through her legs, and she tried, tried and tried to imagine what it was like to have a daughter, a husband, a baby to nurse every morning and every night and a husband to feed like she had seen in plays and read about in books. But a film kept drawing itself across her eyes, a film of a young Carol and a young Abby playing tennis in white on a New Jersey lawn over the vacation like Carol had told her. She wondered what it would have been like if she had grown up with Carol instead of Abby, and what it would have been like if they had shaped each other's lives from the start.

Would they also have loved, and not loved, as Carol and Abby had? And would Carol also have found someone younger to replace her? Was that maybe why Carol thought Therese would want someone younger, a lover or a daughter or someone who would only see the world through Therese's eyes? Did Therese want that? And did Carol ever look at something and see it the way Therese saw it or couldn't she, just like Therese couldn't imagine what it was like to have lived longer than she had?

A light flickered on in the window of an apartment across the avenue. Was life always like this, always looking in on other people's lives but never being able to play a part? Only always trying, reaching until we grew too old and tired to reach any further– Carol walked back into the kitchen and stopped in the doorway. 'Why on earth are you still sitting there?'

The tone of the question might have made Therese laugh if she had not felt so exhausted. 'I don't know,' she said, and heard her own flat voice the way she sometimes heard Carol's. There was a silence. 'I don't think I want children.'

'All right.'

'I don't want anyone but you.'

Carol moved then, and she felt the warm hand on her arm. 'Darling, you know I'll always be here.'

She took the hand and let Carol lead her to the couch in the living room, where she pulled Therese's feet onto her lap and had her read out passages from her favorite Shakespeare until she had found her voice. _'…there they hoist us, / To cry to the sea that roar'd to us, to sigh / To the winds whose pity, sighing back again, / Did us but loving wrong.'_ Eventually, she heard that Carol had fallen asleep. The rain ticked at the wide windows of their apartment. She put the book aside and looked at her, at the fingers that gripped Therese's knees, at the mussed blond curls, the red lips, slightly parted, and the long lashes, beautiful and blond and solemn.

With care, Therese pulled a blanket off the back of the couch and draped it across Carol. The rain was ticking harder now, more urgently. With care, she leaned in and placed a kiss on Carol's cheek. Carol stirred in her sleep and, in that moment, something of her expression as she dreamt made Therese almost understand, almost understand what it was to want to bring someone new into the world. Then Therese must have fallen asleep, too, because when she woke she was lying on her side with Holiday squeezed beside her and Carol's arms around her, Carol's breath rippling in pleasant, steady waves along her back. So there they were, she thought, as she listened, as she loved – lone comets floating above the park and the city and the street, cut off from everyone and everything except each other.

* * *

 _A/N: Something slightly longer and a bit more contemplative for the farthest I've ventured into their timeline. They've been living together for a little over a year now. I so wish I could've written them as one big happy family but I just didn't quite feel like it would happen…_

 _The Chekhov play Therese is prepping is 'The Seagull' – there were a series of Off-Broadway revivals of Chekhov's plays happening under a director called David Ross at the time, which is fun. The Shakespeare lines are from 'The Tempest' (which is also where the epigraph of all these scenes, listed under the table of contents, is from), because Therese loves her nature imagery (and because the play, rather surreally, and not unlike the Seagull, mixes metaphors of nature with issues of family and love)._

 _Also, as a point of coincidence, the last line of this chapter turned out to contain an echo, or even a kind of recasting, of the penultimate line of the very first scene, 'In Colorado Springs (Early February)'. The reference to Harge taking away Rindy for Christmas picks up on 'In Paris (December into January) II' and the reference to Carol's own birthday reaches back to 'On Madison Avenue (Early April)'._

 _Next one will be a flashback to an earlier, sunnier time and a long overdue rendezvous with an old friend…_


	13. To New Jersey (Early June)

_A/N: A prompt from anonymous on Tumblr: A scene with Abby – Abby befriends Therese._

* * *

 _To New Jersey (Early June)_

To New Jersey, that was where Carol insisted they would go to spend a sunny Sunday of their first June. 'Do we have to?' Therese groaned from her prime spot on an armchair Carol had recently brought in, her legs flung over one side, her head over the other, a book in her hands and the cat named Holiday purring against her chest. She had not seen Abby since those winter days at Carol's house, gone now, and she had only spoken to her once or twice over the phone. She had no particular desire to see Abby again or to meet her 'friend' named Jean. The more she thought about it, the more the not-so-distant memories began to catch up with her.

But Carol was in a good mood, and when Therese's bag landed on her face, it scared away the cat. 'Come on, slowpoke. No one says no to free steak.'

The drive to Paramus, New Jersey, was about an hour. Carol made it in forty minutes. She talked about her work, the picky clients, the art deco sofas she had discovered, the furniture jokes her manager made, and Therese smiled in spite of herself. Paramus was around the corner from where Carol had lived, but it could have been miles away. There were no old houses to remind Therese of Carol's, only rows of trucks and produce farms, and a giant roller skating rink. Carol raced through it in a blaze of dust as though she had known it all her life.

The steak house was on the outskirts of the borough, by a stretch of forest and a river and a beach of screaming, naked children. It sat in the landscape like a cardboard box dropped onto a lawn, and Carol only just managed to find a place to park. Therese stepped out and looked at the sign that read JEAN'S STEAK HOUSE in big blue letters on a stark white wall. She thought of the diners out West, the endless rows of them as she drove back home. 'Carol–'

Carol was already halfway across the parking lot. 'Yes?' she said.

'Carol, I don't think–' She broke off.

Carol turned round. Then she walked back, although Therese had not expected her to, and stopped by the side of the car. She studied Therese's face as the sun beat down upon them. It seemed like Carol wanted to touch her, although Therese knew she could not. 'Please,' Carol said, and there was a flicker in her eyes. 'For me.'

Abby was at the door to welcome them in a cloud of laughter. She embraced Carol. Therese decided to shake her hand. 'Hi Therese.'

'Hi Abby.'

They looked at each other. Therese did not know what else to say. Abby was the same as always and wore a fitted blue suit as if to match the restaurant. Then a red-haired woman emerged from the kitchen, wiping her hands off on a 'Jean's Steak House' apron and adjusting her skirt. 'Hello, hello!' she hollered and laughed a laugh that could have been Abby's. She was tall and loud, but not in an unpleasant way, and seemed to be a bit younger than Abby. She introduced herself as Jean.

'Named after the wrong movie star,' Carol said, with a nod at her hair.

'Gosh, don't I know it!' Jean looked at Abby. 'I'm a Rita Hayworth, not a Jean Harlow. Abby always tells me.'

'Abby only has about three jokes,' Carol said. 'Don't you, darling?'

'I do not!'

But Jean was already laughing, clinging to Carol's arm as if she had finally met someone who understood exactly what Abby put her through. And it seemed to Therese, for the first time, a very special thing to be with people who knew what she and Carol were to each other, a very special thing that they could share their secrets, sitting with their cocktails on a New Jersey lawn, although they did not say a word or make a gesture that might give anything away to anyone else.

When Jean returned to the kitchen to tend to the steaks, Therese walked with her while Carol and Abby went to catch up over mini-golf. The restaurant was quieter now, as afternoon turned to evening and the sun began to leave its marks on the sky. It made the bar stools glow orange and stained the kitchen counter pink. They stood in the corner, away from the remaining chefs.

'I only met Abby a few months ago,' Jean said between puffs of her cigarette. The steaks sizzled on the stove. 'How about you?'

'The same. Only a few months ago.' The words would have meant nothing to anyone listening in.

'Oh, seems like you and Carol would have known each other longer.' Another puff. 'Abby kept coming here every week, and then twice a week and then she started leaving these tips…' A chuckle. 'You?'

'I sold her a doll at Frankenberg's over Christmas,' Therese said.

'So, we were both on the other side of the counter.' Jean winked at her, her friendly, open face done up with black eyeliner and purple eye shadow. On anyone else, this would have bothered Therese, but it suited Jean. It was not hard to see why Abby liked her, liked her honesty.

Therese smiled. 'Seems so.'

'Abby helps out here sometimes,' Jean went on quickly, 'and she's always so sweet and cool and funny. My husband only used to mope around. But I was nervous about meeting Carol, you know.' She fidgeted, picking at her white lace shirt, probably her best shirt. 'I heard so much about her. Abby talks about her all the time. I almost felt like I was intruding on something. She's very…elegant.'

'Yes,' Therese said, watching her.

'But, you see, I always think– I always think: now, can Carol Aird make this good a steak?'

Therese was smiling again. 'Probably not.'

'Well, there you go!' And she turned the stove off with a flourish, making Therese laugh, too.

Yes, Therese thought, there you go. There was always something that Therese had that Abby did not have, or that Abby had that Therese did not have. There was always a reason that Carol and Abby were the way they were and that Carol had come to Therese, had come back to Therese. There was always a reason. If only Therese could find out what it was. If only she could know it as well as Jean seemed to know hers. She did not think Carol had ever told her.

They ate their steaks as the sun dipped away, and Therese really was not sure that Carol could have done a better job at preparing them. Carol, apparently, agreed. 'This is very good,' she said, shaking her head. 'For some reason, I always overcook the meat.' Therese met Jean's eyes over the table. The cries of the last swimming children reached them from the river. Over dinner, Therese thought about what Jean had said about Abby, about how she was bright and self-assured and funny, about how these were the things that had annoyed Therese when Abby had last questioned her over lunch. But she began to think that they might be necessary things, necessary means for getting by, when you lived alone like Abby did.

Abby got up to put away the dishes, and Therese got up to help. At the bar, Abby offered her another cocktail. 'Thanks for coming over,' she said. So, they sat together in the empty restaurant, looking out through the open verandah, waiting for the night to flood in.

'Can you forgive me?' Abby always got straight to the point.

'For what?' Therese said.

'For blaming you.'

Therese knew what she meant – the telephone call in Chicago. 'It's all right. I usually blame myself.'

There was a silence. 'How are things with Carol?' Abby was bound to ask. But Therese was not sure how to answer and still sound as bright, as cool as Abby.

Carol was talking to Jean at the table outside. The last rays of the sun lit up the golden pleats of her dress, the summer dress Therese loved. 'Does she say more to you than she does to me?' Therese asked finally.

When Abby answered, there was a smile in her voice. 'Sometimes she talks, sometimes she doesn't. That's the way she is.' She thought for a moment. 'But she says more to me about you than about anyone else.'

Therese looked over. Like what, she wanted to know, but Abby read her mind. 'That she admires you, your ambition, your intelligence.' Carol had never told her these things. Or had she? 'That you make her happy.'

Joy fluttered through Therese's chest in the fading heat. She tried not to show it. She hoped she would remember it if she ever felt lost in the future. 'I know _you_ make her happy,' Therese said then. In the darkness, Abby's hand reached out to touch her own.

When they said good-bye, Abby gave her a hug and talked, eagerly, about their plans to go to Italy over the summer – Rome and Rapallo – because Jean had never been. When they drove away, Abby and Jean stood outside, waving until Jean's fiery hair was a distant blur under the neon signs of the restaurant. In another life, Therese thought that they might have put their arms around each other.

Carol leaned against the open window of the car, her fingers drumming out a rhythm on the steering wheel. A thin layer of sweat glistened on her pale skin. 'Well, that was nice,' she said. 'Abby was on her best behavior, for once.' She paused, as though she were waiting for Therese to agree. 'Maybe we should see them in Italy this summer. What do you think? Is there anywhere you want to go?'

Therese felt-lightheaded. She looked at the black fields whizzing past, the square houses, the tall trees. There was no horizon now. They could go anywhere, she thought. The last time she had thought this, in Colorado Springs, she had been wrong. But this time they could, and she believed it, and the vast and hopeful breadth of the world that she could see with Carol seized her with a thrill of intense happiness. 'I've never been to Italy.'

'I know,' Carol said. 'I think you'd like it.'

Therese knew that she would.

* * *

 _A/N: Thanks for your patience again, guys!_

 _So I did my research about Paramus, NJ, and found out that it is just around the corner from Ridgewood, where Carol lives according to the movie (the woman Highsmith obsessed over owned a Normandy Tudor home there). Also, Paramus only acquired its shopping malls in the 50s and 60s (it was a truck farming area before that), so I figured that at the start of the 50s it could possibly be in a bit of a grim state of transition. (Also, this is, as ever, all from Therese's perspective, and she tends towards being pessimistic.) I did fudge the look of the steak house because I wanted to create an echo with the scene outside the 'Spare-Time' diner in the movie._

 _The roller skating rink actually existed and the beach is the Old Mill bathing beach at 189 Paramus Road, off Saddle River. The reference to Rapallo, Italy, is from the book, p.162/p.188 in my Kindle edition. Carol's dress is the same one as from my 'On Madison Avenue (Mid-May)' fic._

 _If you want to fancast Jean, think Geena Davis in the 1940's world of 'A League of Their Own':  
_ _i*pinimg*com/originals/2c/a6/04/2ca604c54bad4599640e118264db2a56*jpg  
_ _And here:  
_ _thefancarpet*com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/A_League_of_Their_Own_19138_Medium*jpg  
_ _Jean's make-up is a cheeky reference to 'Thelma & Louise':  
_ _i*pinimg*com/564x/de/27/d2/de27d288bae1b1846170cc5020824b31*jpg_

 _(ETA: For an anachronistic soundtrack to this scene, I listened to Dia Frampton's "Lights".)_


	14. To Arizona (Early July)

_A prompt from innatelymagical on Tumblr: Carol and Therese celebrate the Fourth of July_ – _plus fluff. (For an anachronistic soundtrack to this scene: I listened to Wynonna Judd's 'Only Love'.)_

* * *

 _To Arizona (Early July)_

To Arizona, that had been the plan for the past week or so, but then Therese had asked if they could stop to get a taste of Texas, and then Carol had wanted to spend an extra day in Santa Fe. The result was that when they finally reached Tucson, Arizona – another one of Carol's promised locations from their first trip – Therese pointed out that it was nearly the Fourth of July. 'Christ, no wonder it's so unbearably hot,' was Carol's wry response, as if she had no idea it was July, and as if the entire thing had not been her idea in the first place.

Carol had started looking at maps in early May, in silence at first, and then she had said that she wished they could drive as far west as they had once planned to go, and further still, and south, too, and she asked whether Therese would want to. And Therese had said that she did. It would be their second summer together. Enough time had passed. The prospect was as glorious as it had been before. They had exchanged Carol's Packard for a Chevy convertible and, by early June, they were on the road once more.

Therese was relieved to be away, away from work, away from the city. Her pay was still the same as it had always been, and there were colleagues, men, who had begun to ask her questions about herself, to hang around by her desk, to distract her from her work, and she was not sure how much her work was really about her work anymore. Harkevy was busy with other things, other people. She did not tell Carol all this. When she was with Carol, she was not at work, and the further she went with Carol, the further she reached back to how she had once felt, maybe that day in Frankenberg's, maybe at birth, about what life could promise her.

Carol wanted to go south first, then all the way west, then north, to Washington and over the border into Canada to cool off, then east again, and home. By south, Therese thought that she meant a drive along the coast, but Carol was determined to stay as far away from the swarm of tourists as possible. It took all of Tennessee and half of a steaming Georgia for Therese to persuade her to make for the sea – and then, when they arrived in Florida, another hour to persuade her to swim. But it had been worth it, if only to see Carol walk onto the beach in the red bathing suit Therese knew she had packed.

Then, with the Fourth of July approaching, Carol had gotten it into her head that she did not want to stay in Tucson to celebrate, that she wanted to go in search of some silence. And so, on the day itself, with the sun barely waking over the mountains, they set out to cross the state of Arizona. The heat was already beginning to choke the city as Carol, in a spotless white blouse and tan slacks, packed the last of their belongings into the car. The first strips of light shone down the long, flat avenue. For the years to come, Therese knew that she would remember this the most: the desert, rich and hot and endless, and the way the wind caught Carol's hair as they sped through it.

They would see the desert again, in a very different incarnation, when they reached Reno, but Therese's first real look at the land she had long dreamed of was when they drove out of Tucson that morning. From a mile away, she spotted the tall cacti, their arms outstretched like giants praying, and was shocked by how green the Sonoran was. Then, as if for dramatic effect, they were caught in a downpour as soon as Tucson had disappeared out of sight.

Carol pulled over the car and swore, struggling with the roof, until Therese finally told her to sit down. With a calm that was usually Carol's, she put her lackluster set-building skills to use and saved the car from drowning. 'Rain in the desert!' Carol exclaimed once they were inside and dripping onto the leather seats.

'Actually, this could be one of the first monsoons of the season. They're common here from early July – or so I've read.'

Carol shook her head. 'What would I do without you?' she said, and leaned over to place a kiss on Therese's wet cheek.

Therese smiled, as the rain poured. 'I have no idea.'

They made their way out of the monsoon and took turns driving – although Therese was more patient with the maps – through Phoenix, through the arid forest, through Flagstaff. The heat pursued them, always mounting, always breathing down their necks. The trick reflection of water lured them down the road. In Flagstaff, Carol found a motel with a pool, and they swam. When they got dressed, Therese knotted her blue shirt away from her shorts the way she had seen the girls do in Texas. Carol gave her an approving look, and she blushed, dizzy in the heat.

The fireworks came alive in occasional bursts, over a mountain or a gas station or the neon sign of a hotel, as if a faraway god was sending a signal. By the evening, they had reached the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, and it stretched out in front of them, a gaping pit, beckoning, promising. But Carol did not stop there – they drove east, following the Colorado River, and found a viewpoint abandoned for the sake of celebration.

As soon as Carol had parked, Therese climbed up to sit on the side of the car, breathless. She took off her sunglasses. In the desert wind, the red curves and ridges of the canyon seemed to reach for her. She thought of the sets she had been wrestling with. How small and pointless they seemed now, how small and pointless the people seemed. But what could she do, what could anyone do, except try to summon a sight like this on stage, forget everything else and remember only this, remember only Carol, driving and driving her away from everyone else? When she turned back, Carol was smiling.

'What are you looking at?'

'You,' Carol said. 'Or isn't that allowed?'

'It's allowed,' Therese said, with some cheek.

Carol picked up Therese's camera, and Therese began to protest. 'Hold still,' Carol said, trying to look through the lens. 'The view is better this way.'

Therese could not face her. She looked back at the canyon. But she sat a little straighter and fixed her shirt. She no longer fidgeted under Carol's gaze – familiar now, but no less wonderful. Instead, she let it wash over her, let it spread along her arms and legs and into her stomach like a gentle, coaxing current. She felt as though she were being drawn, gradually and irresistibly, into the depths of the canyon's winding rivers.

'I wrote you other letters, you know, after we first met,' she said. She meant letters other than the one, the beautiful one, Florence had found and had given away. She knew Carol would know what she meant. 'But I never sent them.' And she started talking, without knowing what she said, about the first letter she had written. And she told Carol about the image that she had dreamed and then had put to paper, about standing in the desert and raising her arms like the cacti of the Sonoran and hearing the rumble of a rainstorm before it struck. Before she had finished, she felt Carol's fingers on her bare leg. She thought of the rain, trailing down.

She stretched out her leg, and Carol's fingers touched her ankle and took off her shoe. The sand poured out of it. They laughed. 'Is that why you know so much about monsoons?' Carol asked.

'Maybe,' she said.

'My poet.' Carol reached out her hand to Therese.

Therese kicked off her other shoe, but hesitated. 'Can we…here?'

'Do you see anyone?' The air was growing dark around them. The trees leaned down. There was no one. 'Unless you want to put up the roof.'

'No,' Therese said, and she took Carol's hand. She crawled across the seats and onto Carol's lap, and Carol's hands settled on her waist. Carol pressed her cheek against Therese's chest. She breathed, and they breathed as one.

Therese wound her fingers into Carol's hair. 'Happy Independence Day,' she said suddenly.

Carol let out a laugh. Her head fell back against the seat, and Therese buried her face in her neck, in her white shirt. 'Oh, who needs independence?' Carol said. In the silence left by the fireworks, a coyote cried out. And Carol's mouth was there, beckoning, promising, pressing against her own.

(Shortly afterwards, they did hear a car crunch on the sand nearby, and Therese, half-naked, had to throw herself beneath the seats. Carol raised a hand to the new arrivals with a polite 'Good evening!'. She was trying not to laugh, but a giggle from Therese, from below, set her off, and the sound of Carol's voice echoed far across the black canyon.)

* * *

 _A/N:_ 'The phrases of some letter she had written to Carol and never mailed drifted across her mind as if to answer Richard. _I feel I stand in a desert with my hands outstretched, and you are raining down upon me._ '

 _This was inspired by both 'Thelma & Louise' and 'Desert Hearts', which I watched recently and which you should watch, if you haven't already, because it's a pretty seminal lesbian film from 1985 (with a happy ending and some amazing love scenes). Desert Hearts actually takes place – not at the Grand Canyon, which is T&L, of course – but in Reno, which is the city that C&T just don't reach on their original road trip because they turn back and head for Colorado Springs. (Also, to be honest, if someone wrote a Thelma & Louise AU for C&T, I'd read it – where the gun does go off, if you know what I mean…)_

 _I do love writing about these two in summer, since that's the season we never got to see them in. Doing a bit of research for this, I quickly mapped out C &T's original road trip on Google drive with notes from the Kindle book (since I found one for T&L but there wasn't one for C&T):_  
 _drive*google*com/open?id=18TBYT2A-7jSOJJ9l4VReYCqLh6xdwLDf &usp=sharing_  
 _I also roughly mapped out what I'd imagine their road trip 2.0 might look like. It includes all the places that Carol mentions to T in the book but that they don't get to visit (Tucson, Santa Fe, Reno – and Washington is her home state):_  
 _drive*google*com/open?id=1pQLy_t94JX12qjCi4nmjZ2jUuqTKmayo &usp=sharing_

 _C &T's outfits are modeled on Vivian and Cay's in 'Desert Hearts'. For Cay/Therese, see the poster (minus the boots):_

 _media*baselineresearch*com/images/309628/309628_full*jpg_  
 _For Vivian/Carol – there's actually a better outfit that she wears but I can't find a screenshot, so I guess you'll have to watch the movie to find it – think the outfit on the right but with a white shirt (minus the hat…or plus the hat, eventually…who knows):_

 _stg*afterellen*com/assets/uploads/2015/08/deserthearts7-e1438972543237*png_  
 _Find their 1951 Chevy convertible here: i*pinimg*com/originals/c0/18/7a/c0187a1ce5361e25bfab1996994c5027*jpg_  
 _For keen readers, the reason Carol starts looking at maps in early May is because she and Therese had argued over Rindy in late April (scene 12)…_

 _Enough from me – happy Carol season! Enjoy this desert dreamscape, because next time things won't be as sunny (you know me)…_


	15. At Rockefeller Center (Mid-September)

_A/N: A prompt from longlivevanderjesus on Tumblr: Mrs. French (from the book) visits New York to sightsee and Carol offers that they accompany her._

* * *

 _At Rockefeller Center (Mid-September)_

At Rockefeller Center, the agony of their sightseeing tour with Mrs. French finally came to an end. It was their first free weekend since the summer, and they had had to spend half of it with Mrs. French. Therese could not understand why. Carol had shown Therese the letter the week before – forwarded to her by Harge – and had been utterly resolved to take Mrs. French around the city. And Therese had to come along, too. It had been about a year and a half since they had last seen the old woman, but she was exactly as Therese remembered her, as old, as frail, as talkative, as though no days had passed at all.

Mrs. French was ecstatic to be reunited with them, particularly with Carol, who tirelessly discussed the blossoming careers of Mrs. French's sons, the weather in the state of Washington, and the flower bulbs Mrs. French had brought as a gift and that Carol promised to nurture on their windowsill. Therese played the part of the walking stick. She helped Mrs. French onto the ferry to see the Statue of Liberty, helped Mrs. French off the ferry, helped her into and out of taxicabs, through Central Park, through the entire Metropolitan Museum, and wherever else Mrs. French's list of sites would take them. Nervous that Mrs. French would collapse in her arms at any moment, Therese looked for a sign from Carol that they could let her go. But Carol was always deep in conversation, was always explaining the intricacies of the history of some building or other, and Therese did not know what to make of any of it.

It was a breathtaking fall day in New York, with the brown and orange trees rustling in the wind, with the leaves sometimes dipping off and plummeting to the ground the way Therese feared Mrs. French might fall and crumble. With a little smile of glee, Therese played a game of stepping on the leaves so that they crunched and, to keep from worrying about Mrs. French, ended up playing a number of trivial games wherever they went. Distracted in this manner, it took her much longer than usual to realize that something was wrong.

Carol told Mrs. French about her first visit to the Met, but her fingers picked at the hem of her coat, picked an entire string out of the corner, and Therese made a mental note to re-sew it for her. They sat down to lunch, and Therese felt Carol's feet fidget incessantly under the table. They looked up at the Statue of Liberty, and when Carol shaded her eyes, her mouth creased into a frown. Walking through Central Park, Therese thought she heard Carol sigh, just as a breeze fled through the dying branches of the trees. And yet, there was never a moment that Carol complained, never a moment that she looked to Therese for help. Her hand squeezed Therese's only once, behind a Greek sculpture in the museum. Carol simply listened and replied to Mrs. French, politely and elegantly, as ever.

Therese began to think about how, when they had first met Mrs. French in Colorado Springs, they had known that the detective was following them, that he would find them. She thought about how Mrs. French had filled their days with her guilelessness, her stories, and how Therese had hated her for it. But then she thought about Mrs. French's old age, about how she shared Carol's home state, and about how she had been happy to talk and talk to Carol when all the family Carol had previously talked to had, one way or another, been working to drive her into a ditch. And she realized that maybe it was not Mrs. French who was about to collapse, after all.

When Mrs. French said good-bye to them on the observatory deck of Rockefeller Center, kissing them both on the cheeks as she had done in Colorado Springs, Therese suddenly did not want her to leave. She did not want to be left alone with whatever had been following Carol around the city since that morning or, perhaps, for longer still. She held onto Mrs. French's paper-thin hand. She felt it hover beside them, then, like a ghost of grief. She felt that it could only be dispelled by the old woman's inane, unaffected, domestic talk – a talk that Carol and Therese could never truly be able to reciprocate.

But Mrs. French left, and they were alone. They stood at the edge of the building in the late afternoon with the wind flinging Therese's hair across her face. They stood as if on the brink of time. Carol's hands were white as she gripped the bannister, as the white smoke flitted from her cigarette, and her expression was vacant, distracted in a way that Therese had grown to recognize.

They stood in silence for a while. Finally, Therese asked, 'Is it Rindy?'

'It's got nothing to do with you, darling,' Carol replied, as she always did.

'No, I know,' Therese said and, for the first time, gave voice to a realization that she had very gradually come to. Carol looked at her. 'I know. But I want you to tell me anyway.'

Carol smoked. Therese felt that she might just talk, then and there, to her and no one else. She did. 'He doesn't want me to see her anymore.'

A cloud passed in front of the sun. 'What do you mean?'

Carol shrugged, her eyes red but dry. She had been carrying this around for over a week. How stupid Therese had been. That was why Harge had sent her all those letters. Of course.

Therese turned to face her. 'What do you mean?' she asked again. The oblivious tourists chattered behind them. 'Why would he do that? Why would he change his mind when he let you see her on her birthday and–' Fury rose within her. She tried, like Carol, to keep it at bay.

Carol shrugged again. 'Maybe he heard that we drove away together.' She laughed, quietly. 'Whatever his reasons, it's perfectly legal. There's nothing I can do.'

The entirety of their second road trip west, of their second summer, of the sand and the sunlight, of Carol's lips on her own, flashed through Therese's mind. Perhaps they had not been careful enough. Perhaps the people Harge knew were everywhere. And now their second trip would be tainted, tainted as their first trip had been tainted. She felt that the tourists on the observatory deck were watching them, judging them, too. Who had not judged them, really? Who had not wanted them to fail? Even Mrs. French would, if she knew. And yet, Carol had only ever treated anyone with the utmost respect. Carol had borne it all with the dignity of a deity.

Therese remembered something Carol had said about Mrs. French in Colorado Springs: _'Darling, did you ever think you'll be seventy-one, too, some day?'_ Therese had answered _'No'_ , but would Harge have answered _'Yes'_? If Harge loved Carol as much as he said he did, he would have thought about who would be there to steady Carol's steps when she stumbled. Or maybe he thought that, now that there was Therese, Carol had no need of her daughter? If Harge had been standing next to them, in that moment, she would have thrown him off the side of the building. She would have watched him fall.

Perfectly legal, Carol had said. 'Legal,' Therese repeated. 'Seems like our road trips are doomed.'

The white smoke from Carol's cigarette filled the sky. 'Oh, Therese,' she said, and the tone of her voice was one that Therese had never heard before, of anger and adoration, of sorrow and sweetness, of everything Therese felt and everything that she longed for. Her heart rose to the height of the building on which they stood. 'It's not us, never us.' Us, Therese thought. Still us. 'Never you. It's this…' Carol made a gesture, as if towards the view, as if towards the world.

'But why? I don't understand.' What was there to understand, when nothing made sense but what she had, still had, with Carol?

Carol was silent for a moment. 'I suppose pride catches up with us all.'

The toy cars crawled up their toy streets. They could see the whole island from here. The whole island could see them. She thought she saw Mrs. French hail a taxicab. Mrs. French was heading back to her little home in Washington, Mrs. French who spoke about her sons so openly, so proudly. She thought of Harge calling Rindy his 'sunshine', proudly. But what about her and Carol's pride? She did not think anyone had ever listened to them, to what they wanted, to what they felt. If she screamed now, if she kissed Carol now, would anyone ask her why she had, or would they only lock her away? And Rindy – she did not think Harge had ever asked her what she wanted. Maybe she was not old enough to know, but Therese vaguely recalled Abby saying, over the phone in Chicago, that Rindy wanted to stay with Carol. So, why not let her?

No, there was nothing to understand. There really was nothing to understand. There was only the way things were, and the way things were not.

* * *

 _A/N: This was a tricky one. I wanted to address the atmosphere of melancholy and absurdity that Mrs. French brings with her in the book, but I also wanted to address a plot point that I've been meaning to incorporate for a while. If you want to re-read with music: I listened to Melody Gardot's 'Once I Was Loved'. Hope it works! This scene takes place after the previous one (which addresses C &T's second road trip), and from now on all the scenes will be posted in chronological order, with no more flashbacks to the past. Next time it's Christmas…_


	16. On Madison Avenue (Late December) II

_A/N: This is just called 'Late December II' because it's the second Christmas I'm having Carol and Therese spend on Madison Avenue; it isn't necessarily a follow-up to the first Christmas scene. This one follows on chronologically from the situation with Rindy addressed in the previous scene. But I basically wanted to write them an indulgent domestic Christmas special, catch up with a few characters, and bring back Abby and Jean from 'To New Jersey (Early June)'. I thought it was about time… Hope you enjoy!_

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Late December) II_

On Madison Avenue, Therese was playing the piano for the first time in months. She stumbled through 'Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas', but her fingers remembered it better than she had thought. Her mother had drilled it into her, after all. She could never forget. The silk fabric of her mint green dress, the one Carol had gifted her for the holidays, engulfed her. Beside her, the flames of the candles trembled on the dinner table, church-like. The table filled the living room, competing with the tree. Therese had spent hours decorating both, and now both glittered proudly, buoyantly. She could hear Carol cooking in the kitchen, could smell the turkey and the mashed potatoes. She could see the windows glisten with moisture, could see the candles and the baubles and the white folded napkins and the Christmas lights sparkle in their reflections. She could even see herself, sitting at the shiny piano again. She was happy.

She would have been happy, too, to spend Christmas Eve alone with Carol. But Carol had wanted them to throw their first dinner party. She had latched onto the idea in mid-November like a predator onto its prey. She had said that, now that there was no chance of her seeing Rindy again, she did not give a damn what anyone thought. And she had sat down to draw up the guest list. How many people could they invite? Probably ten. There would be Dannie, Phil, the Kellys, an Italian-American girl from work that Therese liked, a woman from the furniture store that Carol liked and her husband, Carol's manager and his wife, and Abby. Carol wanted to do all the cooking, and Therese could design the set that was their living room, and they were both busy, which was just the way they liked it.

The guests would be arriving soon. The cat named Holiday purred on a nearby chair. The sound of the piano was soft, and only slightly out of tune. 'Won't you come and pay me a visit?' Carol called to her from the kitchen.

'Yes,' Therese called back, 'when you're not expecting it!'

She heard Carol laugh. Five minutes later, she went over, because Carol would not be expecting her so quickly. She walked into the kitchen with an affected 'Honey, what's for dinner?', and Carol nearly dropped the platter she was holding. Carol was in red again, for the first time in a while. She had insisted that she and Therese compliment each other. She put aside the platter, leaned over to pick up a towel and began to fan herself with it, laughing still. She laughed more often now. The redness of her dress seemed to flow into her skin, to travel up her fair neck into the lower curls of her hair. Therese crossed the hot kitchen and came up behind her. She wrapped her arms around Carol's waist. Carol kissed her on the cheek. 'Hello you,' Carol said.

They jumped when the doorbell rang. It was only Abby, but it may just as well have been a crowd of twenty people. Abby was talking before she was through the door, about the traffic, about the Christmas shopping, about the bottles of Chianti she had managed to salvage, and the boxes of chocolate cookies. She couldn't forget the cookies. And the fruit. Carol said it was too much. Abby said 'nonsense!', and then they were laughing in the kitchen. As Therese passed into the living room, she heard Abby joke about how she had never seen Carol look so at home by the stove, and Carol joke something back about how times had changed. Therese smiled to herself.

Christmas was always the season when Therese was reminded of their other lives, the lives they had or might have lived. With this dinner party, it was an odd experience. It was the first time they had invited those lives in, into where they lived their own – separate, secret, but so much less alone. Sitting next to Dannie at dinner, she learned that Richard had just gotten married.

'You didn't know?' Dannie said, looking between her and Phil. Phil was busy eating.

Therese shook her head.

'I think they went to Europe over the summer and he asked her there.'

She nearly choked on her cranberry sauce. Dannie asked if she was all right, and she nodded, hiding her smile behind her napkin and smelling Carol on the expensive napkin, and only smiling more. The irony, she thought, of how Richard had simply moved on without her. How he had found another girl as if he had bought her in a shop, when here, with Carol, the days moved very fast or stood still altogether but nothing was ever regular or the same. And Phil, Dannie was saying, was raking up the courage to propose to his girl in the New Year. Congratulations! And Dannie? No, Dannie – here Phil chipped in – was only raking up the courage to perform some new experiment or other. Always in the lab. And Therese? The Kellys wanted to know. No, Therese was married to her work. Therese, the Italian-American girl named Laura began to say, worked harder than anyone else in the office.

Dannie's dark eyes were on Therese as Laura spoke. They were as dark and as kind as Therese remembered them. But she felt the tug of something lighter, weightier, from across the table. She was sitting across from Carol, with the ten guests in between, but she felt the red thread as if it were at her fingertips. Carol was resting her chin on her hand, nodding along to her co-workers, but her gray eyes were distracted. They did not look at Therese, but they might well have. Carol was listening in on their conversation, Therese realized, as Laura gushed on and on. Therese's face grew hot. Finally, she found a place to interrupt.

'She always has new ideas, and she does so much, and all on her own!' Laura cried.

'No, no,' Therese interjected pointedly, 'it's only because I have an excellent patron of the arts.'

No one knew what she meant. Phil speculated that it must be an obscure reference to Oscar Wilde, but now it was Carol's turn to hide her smile behind her hand. Therese felt the thrill of a shared secret. It was a wonderful moment. And the conversation buzzed on around them. And when Carol tapped her glass so that it chimed, everything else fell away. It could have been the climax of a Chekhov play. She stood up and made a toast – to a New Year of partnership, in work, in life, and more. Abby said 'Hear, hear!'. Carol's eyes fell on Therese for the briefest of instants. It was enough. More than enough. They were on opposite sides of the room, but they might have stood side by side, might have even been one. It was all Carol could say about Therese in this time and place, Therese knew.

But then there were other moments: when she glanced at Carol talking to her well-dressed co-workers across the room, and she was not on Madison Avenue at all. She was in the Oak Room. And she was hopeful. But she had no idea what she and Carol could be capable of together. And Carol was getting up so often, hauling the dishes to the kitchen and bringing out more dishes, that the moments when they all sat together, in peace, were few and far between. Therese once asked if she could help, but Carol insisted that she stay put, to the point that if Therese had asked again, Carol might even have gotten angry. Only Abby helped occasionally, simply because she got up and got on with it and did not ask.

After dinner, when they had all drifted away from the table and onto the sofas and armchairs, Therese found herself leaning against the piano with Abby. Abby tried to play something, but gave up.

'How's the old work?' Abby asked.

'The same,' Therese said. Yes, if there was one thing now that was always the same, and never new, then it was her work, despite what Laura said. How times had changed. Harkevy was always telling her that if she wanted to be doing experimental theater, she had to get off Broadway, but that there was no money to be made Off-Broadway. And she knew that if she left Harkevy now and went elsewhere, he would not take her back. And there was no guarantee that things would be different anywhere else anyway. Harkevy knew that, too. That was why he said that she had better stick to what the directors wanted – the realist sets that were not at all reflective of reality. 'Carol's doing well, though.' Across the room, Carol was treating her manager to his fourth glass of wine. Therese had been counting.

'Yes,' Abby agreed, 'she tends to. Something the matter?'

She looked at Abby and saw the friendly glint in her eye, always somewhat amused by Therese. She thought she might tell Abby everything. Instead, she went on about Carol: 'But she's always restless.'

'Yes.' Abby nodded sagely. 'That, too.'

'She got some pictures of Rindy last week. Maybe that's why.'

'Oh,' Abby said, and the glint in her eye seemed to dim, 'I didn't know.'

She didn't know. But Therese had known. They were silent. Somewhere, Dannie and Phil laughed at a good joke. Louis Armstrong sang on the phonograph, and Carol paced away from her group of co-workers and over to the Kellys and back into the kitchen. _A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight… Walking in a winter wonderland…_ Therese suddenly felt horribly guilty for putting Abby in the middle of everything. 'Where's Jean?' she asked, for the sake of saying something.

Abby laughed. 'With her husband,' she replied with a bitterness that Therese had never heard before.

'Oh,' Therese said. 'For good or...?'

'Who knows? He delivers vegetables for the steak house. He's a farmer. But he's such a bore,' Abby rambled, gesturing so that her cufflinks flashed golden. 'I mean, I may not have any vegetables but at least I'm not a sore thumb all the time.' She checked herself. 'Except now. Sorry, Therese. Christmas cheer and all that.'

'It's fine. What does Jean say?'

'That she likes his vegetables. Which doesn't help.'

'No.'

'And I'm also not exactly sure what she means.'

Therese caught the implication. Abby snorted into her drink. 'God, I'm awful,' Abby said. Therese giggled, but then Abby's tone changed again. 'Maybe that's why she doesn't care for me.'

'Don't say that.' And so everyone had their doubts – even the happy Abby.

And yet, whereas Therese eventually grew tired of talking, Abby was tireless. Carol even more so. Through a haze of wine, Therese watched as Carol discussed the future of the furniture house for what seemed like hours. She still did not know how Carol did it. She had desperately tried to imitate Carol at work parties, but could never keep up the charade for more than an hour. Harkevy did not like her for it, she was sure. And everyone liked Carol. But Carol's gray eyes, Therese noticed, as perhaps only Therese could notice, were preoccupied again. And yet, there was no other conversation for Carol to be listening in on.

Therese looked around. Suddenly, she thought she saw what Carol could see. The little girl running around the Christmas tree, crawling under the lace tablecloth, unwrapping the presents her mother had sent her. All the presents Carol had sent her last week and that she might never get. All the presents Therese's mother had never sent her. Would Rindy grow up thinking her mother had abandoned her, like Therese's mother had? And yet, here Therese was, laughing, drinking, celebrating. What had she done to deserve any of this?

Perhaps Dannie, as always, noticed her retreat, because he drew Therese aside before he left and asked her to keep in touch this time, in whatever way she wanted. They hadn't spoken in a few months. Then the Kellys asked her the same thing, and Phil said he would see her at work, and she thought that maybe things were not so bad there, after all. Laura was the last to speak to her. She was shorter than Therese and beamed up at her, her black hair frizzy. Therese was about to say that no thanks were necessary, when she saw that the girl was on the brink of tears. Laura had no close family here. Laura was like Therese. And Laura was saying that she had never met such kind people who would want to have her over for Christmas, and that she had never seen such a beautiful apartment, _veramente bellissimo_ , and never had had such a good dinner (it was true – the turkey hadn't been overcooked) and that the kindness and hospitality was more than she could ever put into words. And Therese thought she might start crying, too, and that she would never be able to explain to Laura why, so she quickly said good-bye and hoped that Carol had not seen.

No sooner had the door fallen shut amid a flurry of shouted thank you-s and Merry Christmas-es, than the doorbell rang again. Carol looked at her watch. 'Did you invite anyone else?' she asked Therese.

But they heard Abby's slurred voice from the hall: 'I'll get it!'

When Abby walked back into the living room, her face was a hundred shades lighter. Jean stood behind her, wearing a smart gold-tinted dress that Abby must have chosen. Her curly red hair was done up. She looked sheepish and was holding a shopping bag with enough Christmas presents for a small village. 'Carol, Therese, I'm so sorry. Ron finally let me get away.'

'That's her husband!' Abby added, brightly.

Jean elbowed her. 'My ex-husband! Carol, this apartment is gorgeous.'

'Whatever, sweetheart,' Abby said. 'At least you're in time to do the dishes.'

'The only thing I'm good at,' Jean quipped back. She managed to hand the bag of gifts to Therese before Abby dragged her off to the kitchen to do the dishes together.

Carol and Therese were left alone to dismantle the living room. Therese wanted to say something, to thank her, or something more, but she could not find the words. Luckily, with Carol, she did not have to try. They worked quickly and quietly. The candlesticks went into this box, the tinsel into that one, and they took apart the table as if they ran the furniture shop together, and not Carol alone. Carol's long embroidered tablecloths were to be folded into symmetrical squares. They stretched them out across the length of the room and then walked into meet in the middle, as in a dance. And one time, when they met, Carol's hand brushed her elbow, Carol's lips brushed her forehead, and Carol kissed her, briefly. She kissed away Therese's thoughts. The cloth was folded.

From the kitchen, on the other hand, the sound of Abby and Jean's voices was incessant. When Carol went to check what on earth was going on, there was a bang and a loud burst of laughter. Carol walked back out shaking her head. 'I don't know how they get anything done.'

Therese was in her armchair, reading and wearing a Christmas hat from Jean's bag of gifts. 'So, now you're glad I'm a mute?'

'I'm always glad,' Carol said, 'whatever you are.'

Therese looked up at her.

Carol was silent for a moment. 'I like the hat,' she said.

Time settled over their apartment like the snow that had begun to fall outside. Carol had put Therese's favorite opera on the phonograph. _Belle nuit, ô nuit d'amour… Souris à nos ivresses…_ The low-voiced Giulietta sang her gondolier's barcarolle from the finale of Offenbach's _Les contes d'Hoffmann_ , and the world seemed to rock with it. Therese thought she could hear the merrymakers singing in the streets, too. Or maybe it was just the music of the spheres, of the angels. Carol collapsed on the sofa with one of Abby's cookies, but took up her notepad and kept working, working still. The cat came to join Therese. In the background, there was Abby and Jean's laughter, drifting, endless, endless, drifting like the snow drifted, too.

When they finally re-emerged from the kitchen, they had their arms around each other. 'So, what's the plan for this evening?' Abby asked, too loudly.

'It's after midnight, pet,' Carol said. 'And it's no fun when you're already drunk.'

'Excuse me? I'm always sober!'

'Even when drunk?' Jean demanded.

'Especially when drunk!' Jean roared with laughter, but Carol looked like she had heard all this before. 'Lighten up, Carol!' Abby said. 'Carol needs to lighten up. You know what, we should play my favorite game!'

Carol sighed, but Therese sat up, no longer tired. Abby's favorite game turned out to be truth or dare without the dare but with whatever alcohol they had left. To Abby's delight, there was still enough eggnog and brandy to go around. As they settled on the floor, around the coffee table, Abby made a big show of mixing the drinks. 'See, either _someone_ has to tell us a secret or _someone_ gets plastered,' she whispered to Therese, for everyone to hear. 'Works every time.'

Carol stretched out her long legs. She took up her glass.

Abby looked her dead in the eye. 'First time with a woman,' she said.

Jean guffawed. Therese, who had started to smile, was a little shocked. But there was no awkwardness, and Carol only drank. Therese was uncertain. She had thought the answer might be Abby, but if it were Abby, then surely Abby wouldn't have asked with Jean and Therese right there?

'See, fool proof!' Abby said to Therese.

Therese glanced at Carol. 'I don't have any secrets,' she said.

Carol smiled a little.

'Oh, _well_!' Abby exclaimed with that cynical cock of her head. 'Did you ever sleep with Richard?'

'Yes.'

'And? How was it?'

'Awful.'

Abby and Jean fell into each other. 'This one's a pillar of salt,' Abby said to Carol between breaths.

Carol shrugged, as if to say 'I told you so'. Therese looked at her for a moment. She considered asking her a question, but did not.

'All right,' Therese said then, facing Abby. 'One for you and Jean. Who asked whom?'

Jean raised her eyebrows. 'Who do you think?' But Abby was silent, and drank. Jean went on: 'Abby wrote me a note on a receipt.' Abby was shaking her head, but Jean ignored her. ' _I like the steak, but I love the hair._ '

Now it was Carol and Therese's turn to laugh, and Abby finished her drink. She turned on Jean with a look of vengeance. 'First time with a woman,' she said. This was her go-to question, clearly.

But Jean did not answer straightaway, and Abby nudged her. 'Come on, I know there was that funny story with– what's her name?' Jean fiddled with her glass. 'Come on!' Abby said again.

'You,' Jean said then.

'No, come on,' Abby said, 'you said there was what's her name!'

'I lied.'

'You lied?'

Jean nodded.

Abby put down her glass. 'Really?'

'I didn't want you to think I didn't know what I was doing.'

They looked at each other, and Therese looked at Carol, and Carol looked down into her glass. 'Revelations all around,' Carol said, before finishing her drink like Abby had.

Abby had looked nice that night, Therese thought. She had pinned her dark hair back with a silver pin and had worn a matching silver brooch on her dark suit. Her laugh lines had framed her round face. And Jean had looked nice, too, sitting against the sofa and petting the cat who had taken a real liking to her and who was partly the color of her hair and partly the color of her sparkling dress. Judy Garland's voice had rung out from the radio that Abby had turned on. _Here we are as in olden days… Happy golden days of yore…_ Therese had not wanted them to leave. As Abby and Jean disappeared to find their coats, the apartment finally grew still. Glancing through two doorways and out of the light of the living room, Therese saw the golden Jean lean into Abby and into the shadows and into the coats, and she saw them kiss.

It was an image made for a photograph. But to photograph it would have been to break it. So she held onto it. She held it in the darkroom of her mind, even if that meant she would lose it later.

It was a little after three when she and Carol were undressing in the bedroom. The night was white, and silent. Therese felt pensive and tipsy. She sat down on the side of the bed. 'You know everything about me,' she said.

'Do I?' Carol said.

Therese did not hear her. 'But there are so many things I don't know about you.' She did not care about whom Carol had loved first. She did not care about any of that. She cared about the things she had not seen and could never see. The house in which Carol had grown up, the view from her bedroom, the grass she lay on in the spring, the pools she swam in in the summer, the schools she had gone to, the dreams she had dreamt before she had had Rindy. How the times had been before they had changed. And all the things that Carol would say were boring as hell. She raised her head.

Carol had finished changing into her pajamas. 'Shouldn't we try to keep some things for later?'

She watched as Carol crossed the room to pull back the sheets. Her steps were surprisingly steady. 'Later?' Therese said. Carol lay down. 'Later, with me?'

'No, with Santa Claus. Yes, with you.'

'Won't you tell me something now, for Christmas? Something I don't know?'

Carol frowned. 'Like what?'

'Well, I can't say if I don't know, can I!'

'Well, all right,' Carol said, and she reached out her hand. The light caught the lines on her palm. Therese had once tried to read them, even though she did not know the next thing about that, and Carol had snatched away her hand, complaining about her privacy, saying that her hands were her own, and Therese had replied that no, they weren't anymore. Carol had not known what to say to that. But Therese now knew there were other, simpler ways to find out what they read. She covered Carol's hand with her own.

She joined Carol under the sheets. She leaned her head against Carol's chest. _Let your heart be light… Next year all our troubles will be out of sight…_ They had left the radio on in the other room.

Carol began to tell her, with a little irony in her voice, of how her family had used to celebrate Christmas once they had moved to a bigger house in New Jersey. How her father had always dragged in the Christmas tree through the hall, and how her mother had to spend hours cleaning up after him. How her mother had slaved over six-course meals – or maybe it was only six courses in her memory – and how, when she married Harge, Carol had always tried to imitate her, but never could. How Carol would go shopping with her sister and her sister's best friend, who was always very smartly dressed, to buy clothes that were too tight and that she had to wear on Christmas Eve. She had kept them somewhere to give to Rindy, but had always conveniently forgotten. She did not pause when she said Rindy's name, but carried straight on and told Therese about how the whole family would come over, all the tedious aunts and uncles and cousins whose names she never remembered, and how Abby was already causing trouble back then, stealing all the carefully arranged presents so that Carol had to go and find them before her mother got angry. Therese could see Carol then, like a little Rindy, but blonde, not touched by Harge, not touched by anyone. _Sui generis_ , and yet, among others.

But then the tone of Carol's voice changed. And Therese was not even sure how it had. Perhaps Carol thought that Therese could not hear her anymore. And Carol was saying how very fine Therese had looked the whole night, and asking whether she had had a good time, although Therese could not reply with the wine and eggnog and sleep running through her veins. And then Carol was saying that they would open their presents in the morning, or the afternoon, or whenever Therese woke up, and that Therese would never believe what Carol had gotten her, _her angel_. And she said that she wanted to make a Christmas confession, that she only cared for the past inasmuch as it had brought them the present, and inasmuch as it would bring them the future, and that 1953 sounded like a marvelous year. And that all she wished for was that it would be the year when her angel got its wings.

And, as Therese fell asleep, her head on Carol's chest, the snow swirling above and around them, she thought that she would very much like to believe her. And she wished for Carol's words to be true.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry, I indulged… Now that I've set up more of a world for them post-canon, I wanted to explore more of the characters' shifting dynamics. But I hope you still think it works and that you enjoyed it! It was originally meant to center purely on Therese's exchange with Abby, but then the drinking game got added on and it became this whole other thing about pasts, presents (in both senses of the word?), and futures… And the idea of Lot's wife looking back versus looking forward…_

 _If you want to hear a beautiful rendition of Offenbach's 'Belle Nuit' (sung by two beautiful, extraordinary women), please, please listen to this:  
_ _www*youtube*com/watch?v=0u0M4CMq7uI_

 _Bonus trivia: we all know Abby would 100% be wanting to dress Jean up as Rita in 'Gilda' (1946) and we all know Jean would 100% be happy to comply (fancast for Jean is still a young Geena Davis). Something like this, but sparkling golden:_

 _3*bp*blogspot*com/-94sNFRP3eiI/VDBH_YcZ4qI/AAAAAAAAc8s/2OgDARdgBlI/s1600/Rita%2BHayworth%2B%2B%2BGilda%2B%2B%2BJean%2BLouis%2B%2B%2Bguitar*jpg  
Therese's dress could be something like the one on the right (floor-length now 'cause she's a little older… Ignore the fact that it's meant to be some sort of elaborate nightgown, because I really wanted a particular shade of mint green that Therese also wears in the movie and that is otherwise impossible to find…): i*pinimg*com/236x/88/f5/fb/88f5fbd3072ce8859b787286d2c92f51-lingerie-patterns-sewing-lingerie*jpg_

 _I also wanted to give you something long because I won't be able to write anything more for a little while. I've got some really important things coming up… But I know exactly how many chapters of this I have left to write and I've written most of most them, so I will definitely wrap this up early next year. I hope you'll stick around for that. A very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year and thank you to everyone for the wonderful support!_


	17. On Madison Avenue (Mid-February)

_A/N: A prompt from winemomofgenovia on Tumblr: Valentine's Day. (I listened to Diane Birch's 'Magic View' for this first fic set in 1953.)_

* * *

 _On Madison Avenue (Mid-February)_

On Madison Avenue, the wind was bitter cold. In the warm apartments, the lights came on slowly, one here, one there. A girl ran across the wide empty street, towards one of the buildings, one of the apartments. She wiped away the tears from the cold. She always looked up first to see if the right light was already on. It usually was. And dinner was usually already ready. Carol tended to make it home earlier because the furniture store was so close, and then, by the time Therese returned, all she had to do was set the table. It had become a routine of sorts.

She could not recall when they had stopped meeting each other in restaurants. Work had caught up with them both, but Carol never let that get in the way of making dinner before Therese got home. And there was always something different on the menu. She sometimes wanted to ask Carol how she did it, how she found the time, but Carol was always offering her some pie or mousse to taste before she was even halfway through the door. So she polished the silverware while Carol tossed the salad and she folded the napkins into shapes without realizing it, and sometimes the days blended into one that way.

It was only when Therese sat down to dinner that evening that she paused to think. 'Isn't today Valentine's Day?'

'For God's sake.' Carol dropped her napkin. 'Is it?' They had forgotten last year, too. Therese began to laugh. 'I don't think I'm ever going to remember,' Carol said.

'Oh well.' Therese stooped to pick up Carol's napkin. It was still in its shape. 'Who cares?'

'Damn right,' Carol agreed, and they ate, mostly in an easy silence, and threw in the occasional sardonic complaint about a colleague or a client or their general existence, as they always did.

But when they changed into their robes and settled in to do their evening reading, as they had the year before, something felt very different from the way it had the year before. It was still relatively early when Carol put aside her catalogues and got up. She walked over, as she sometimes did, to where Therese was sitting with the cat named Holiday in her favorite armchair. Carol leaned over to place a kiss on her forehead. Precise fingers fixed Therese's hair. 'I'm going to bed,' Carol said.

Therese looked up. 'Already?'

Carol shot her a smile, but Therese caught her hand before she could leave. She gave it a little tug. Carol responded. She leaned back over the chair, and they kissed.

'Catch you later,' Carol said against her lips.

It might have been one of those nights when they went to sleep at separate times, awoke at separate times, and only reunited the following evening. But something had started to bother Therese. She knew that the past few months had worn Carol out. She knew that Carol worked long hours to keep her mind off of Rindy. She knew that Carol liked having money and buying nice things, for herself, for Abby, and, more often, for Therese. But she did not know how to tell Carol that she sometimes wished she would stop moving, would let Therese take care of the cleaning and the bills and the dinners, would let Therese find her in a golden restaurant again, would go back to being late for lunch.

Restless, she got up and walked down the hall to the bedroom. Through the doorway, she saw Carol sitting on the edge of the bed. She was frowning over another book. The nightlight was on, and it shone on her robe. Her shadow reached out behind her, black against white, against yellow. Therese had an old thought. She thought of a painting that Caravaggio had never painted.

She went to sit down next to Carol. ' _The Complete Book of Furniture Repair and Refinishing_ ,' she read over her shoulder. 'Sounds fascinating.'

'Rather dry,' Carol replied, frowning still. 'Everything all right?'

'Yes. You?'

'Yes.'

'Sure?'

'Yes.' Carol looked up. 'Why wouldn't it be?'

Therese shrugged, but Carol kept looking at her, like she sometimes looked at her, as though she were trying to figure out a puzzle. Then the precise fingers were there again, fixing Therese's hair. Therese leaned her face into them.

The fingers touched Therese's lips. 'I adore you,' Therese said.

'What a coincidence.' Carol closed the book. 'I adore you, too.'

Therese kissed the inside of Carol's arm. 'I adore you,' she said again.

'What was that?' Carol asked.

Again, Therese said it. But the words were not enough, were never enough, and she slid her hands under the hem of Carol's gown. Carol's skin answered, tingling. She slid her hands higher. Carol's fingers began to undo the belt at Therese's waist. Therese stopped her. 'No,' she said. 'Let me.'

Carol looked surprised, but did not protest. 'Let me,' Therese said again, and she pushed Carol's robe back over her shoulders. As Therese undressed her, carefully, she caught sight, as she had before, of the look on Carol's face. She desperately wanted to ease it, to ease the strain.

'Lie down,' Therese whispered, and Carol did. She climbed on top of her. Carol closed her eyes, but her hand continued to stroke Therese's arm, as in a dream. 'You're not too tired?' Therese looked at her face, at her bare, freckled chest, rising and falling, as in a dream.

Carol shook her head, and the corner of her mouth lifted in a smile. This was endlessly fascinating to Therese. Their eyes met. Again, Carol moved to undo Therese's robe and, again, Therese stopped her. 'Please,' she said. 'Let me.'

Carol raised an eyebrow. 'Let you? What–' But her question was lost to a wordless sound that nearly sent Therese soaring. She pressed herself down against Carol's naked skin, pressed and moved herself up to find Carol's mouth, and Carol's body curved with her. Her hand found Carol's between the sheets, and their fingers twisted together, lives twisting, sweetly, slowly.

Later, she lay, naked, with her arm flung across Carol's side and her forehead against Carol's shoulder. She was almost asleep, and so she may have imagined Carol's voice, low and smooth, may have imagined Carol's hand stroking her hair.

'So,' Carol said, smiling. 'Let you what, exactly?'

But Therese was tired, serious. 'Love you,' she said, simply. The wind whistled outside. 'Won't you?'

Carol stopped moving. The wind whistled. 'Yes.' So much time had passed. Who had any more time to lose, wondering, doubting? 'Yes,' she said then.

* * *

 _A/N: Sorry, I missed Valentine's Day by a bit, but hope you enjoyed! Next time something big happens, although I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to post it. It might not be for a while (probably until May), as I love having some time to immerse myself in C &T's world, rather than having to do these scenes in between. So the next time I write for them, I might well write all the way to the end and finish it quickly, as I think they deserve my full attention for the ending, which I've had planned for a while… Thank you so much for your patience and I hope everyone's had a good start to 2018!_


	18. At Macy's (Mid-May)

_A/N: A prompt from longlivevanderjesus on Tumblr: Therese starts wearing pants and Carol's reaction. (Therese does actually wear slacks in the book, so I took some liberties with this prompt and mixed it with a plot point I've been meaning to cover. Soundtrack is from 'Desert Hearts': 'Crazy' by Patsy Cline.)_

* * *

 _At Macy's (Mid-May)_

At Macy's, the sunlight streamed down onto the heads of the customers, onto the rows of expensive clothes, onto the clean counters. Carol led the way through the crowds. As they walked up to the women's department, the people seemed to part for her, their eyes to turn towards her, the light to cling to her. She approached a salesperson, and they smiled. She touched a jacket, and it shone. Then she turned and tried the jacket on Therese. 'Gorgeous,' she said. For a moment, Therese felt invincible. Even though she knew better now.

Therese had come home tired that day. She had grown more and more tired over the past few months. She had sat down on the sofa and stared out of the window. She knew she was still young. Carol always told her so. But all this waiting for projects that never happened, for projects that happened and then flopped, for people who did not work as hard as she did, for people who gave her the wrong instructions, for men who did not want to hear what she had to say, had turned days into months and months into years. How much more could she have done already if she had been appreciated, if she had been in charge?

Carol had taken her hand and helped her up. Carol had put on her shoes. Carol had said that they would go to Macy's to find her something to wear that would make people listen, whether they wanted to or not. So, there Therese was, changing into a pair of gray slacks Carol had picked to go with the jacket. When she looked in the mirror before walking out, she hardly recognized herself, as if she was not herself at all, but someone who knew how to make a stand in life.

She found Carol going through another rack of slacks, in subtle shades of cream and brown. She had slung her yellow scarf over her shoulder. Her hands moved through the fabrics. Her fingers tested the seams. Therese stood still. She felt her chest tighten. Then Carol looked at her and smiled. Dust floated in the light.

Carol came to her to adjust her collar. 'Perfect,' she said.

Therese closed her eyes.

Carol's hands brushed her neck. 'Don't you think?'

She was about to answer, when a cry pierced the air. Carol's head jerked towards the sound. It was the cry of a little girl. A second later, it was gone. As if it had never happened. But the moment was lost. There was a time when one look from Carol would have made Therese forget about the world. But Therese knew too much now.

Carol said something about getting the slacks in a smaller size. The new clothes crinkled against Therese's skin.

'Something the matter?' Carol asked. She was going through the rack again, trying to find an alternative.

'I've been offered a job in London,' Therese said.

Carol let go of the clothes she had been looking at. They swung back and forth on their hanger. 'In London?'

'With _The Manchester Guardian_. As a photographer.'

'A photographer?'

'Yes.' She forced herself to go on. 'It's where Mireille works. Remember, we met her in Paris–'

'I remember,' Carol said quickly. Her eyes seemed to change color. 'You've been in touch with Mireille?'

Therese realized that she had never mentioned any of this to Carol. How Mireille Monic, the fashionable photojournalist she had talked to at the New Year's Eve party they had attended in Paris in 1951, had first sent Therese a letter nearly half a year ago. And how the newspaper had written to her themselves the other week to say that they were eager to have an outsider's perspective. She had not told Carol any of this. She paused. 'Yes,' she said then. 'About work. I'd be starting in September.'

'In September?'

'Yes.'

'And Mireille found it for you?'

'Yes. She liked my portfolio.'

'Therese,' Carol began to say, and it immediately sounded like a warning. Carol took a step forward. Therese felt herself shrink to the size of a child. 'Is that all she said?'

She did not know what Carol meant. Carol looked at her. Then she knew. She gave a start. It had never occurred to her that Mireille could have any other reason to find her the job, any other reason than that she liked Therese's pictures. Her face flushed with anger – despite everything, her new clothes and her courage. 'What are you saying? That this isn't about me or my work?'

And then it was as if a door that had been open between them had suddenly been slammed shut.

'I never said that.'

'Then say what you mean!' Why did they always argue in April and May, just when the sun began to rise earlier?

A woman looked at them. Carol looked back, and the woman looked away. 'Is there a reason we're discussing this in such a public place?'

Therese said nothing.

'So, you want to go?'

Therese was not angry anymore. She did not know what she wanted. Didn't Carol see that? She never knew. But she knew she had to do something. The conversation they had had on Rindy's birthday over a year ago, before Harge had taken the little girl away, came back to her. Carol had said that Therese might feel differently about being together in a year or two, and Therese had taken that to mean that there would be a time when Carol would want her gone. How pointless a discussion it had been. She saw that now. The day had not been about either Carol or herself. It had been about Rindy. It had always been about Rindy, even when they did not mention her.

'Well?' Carol said.

'Well, you said you might not want me here in a year or two,' she answered, by way of a joke. But Carol did not laugh. She did not even smile.

'I swore that I'd never do anything to appease them,' Carol went on in the same, straight tone.

Therese decided to match it. 'I know, and that's why _I'm_ doing this.'

They stood, for a moment, watching each other like cornered animals, Carol's eyes colorless now. Then the shop girl came back with the slacks in the right size. 'Here you go, ma'am.'

Carol took them from her. 'Thank you.' She seemed exhausted suddenly, and Therese fell with her, felt her exhaustion as if they were one inseparable being. Even though they were not. Carol waited for the girl to leave. She seemed to wait for decades. 'And they've offered you a good position there?' she asked finally.

'They have.'

Carol's hands smoothed out the slacks. 'Well, that's that.'

It was done, Therese realized. Carol wanted to pay for the clothes at the counter, but Therese would not let her. She would never let her pay for anything again.

When Therese came home early from work the next day, she walked in on a telephone call from Carol to Abby. 'No, I know, pet, and I'm sorry… I just…' Carol's words reached her through the many rooms of their apartment. 'What can I do on my own?' A silence. 'Is she leaving me?' Another silence. 'Is everyone leaving me?'

Therese stood by the door, her shoes and coat still on, and listened to the sound of Carol's broken voice, so different from the tone she had used in the store. She did not know why she was still surprised, did not know why it pierced her to her very soul. She thought of going to Carol's room, of putting her arms around her and telling her that she would never leave. _Where shall I go? What shall I do?_ She thought of Scarlett O'Hara, the desperation, the determination. But then she thought of how Carol might want to speak to Abby alone and how, after all, she had now accepted the position in London.

She hung up her coat. She took off her shoes. She would have to trust Abby, trust Abby to explain, trust Abby to console, and trust that this was the right thing to do, for herself, for Carol. She walked into the spare bedroom and found the clothes that they had bought neatly folded and laid out on the bed. She picked up the slacks. Knowing that Carol had held them, she pressed them to her face. She felt calmer. She hung up all the clothes in the closet. She looked at them and wondered how it would feel to wear them in London, where she would wear them, who would see her. She would not wear them until she arrived there, she decided. Then she changed into her pajamas and crept under the sheets.

As she drifted into her dreams, she still heard Carol's voice, soft, sorrowful, on the telephone to Abby, and, as she dreamt, the sound encircled and embraced her, soft, sonorous. When she woke in the dead of night, she briefly thought that the embrace was real. But Carol had not joined her in this bed, as she had before when they had argued. She closed her eyes, and she imagined that Carol had. She felt Carol's lips brush the back of her neck, Carol's breath on her shoulder, as if speaking, as if coaxing her back to sleep and, as she slept, she dreamt of the flutter of a butterfly, stretching its wings, preparing to fly.

* * *

 _A/N: This one was tricky, because it brought together a number of strands I'd been juggling… I hope it works!_

 _Macy's is where Highsmith actually worked when she saw the blonde woman – the department store Frankenberg's was modeled on… Also, for Therese's clothes, I switched from one Hepburn (Audrey) to another (Katharine), even though this outfit is technically from the forties: i*pinimg*com/736x/fb/a9/d4/fba9d4411f026d822387f5ca982a3d10-kate-hepburn-katharine-hepburn*jpg_

 _Also, I just realized that these past few fics have all somehow ended with Therese dreaming – accidental symbolism perhaps? That's for you to decide! Thank you all for your patience. It won't be that long a wait until the next one…_


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